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POPSGlobalization Helps Pandemic Evolve The story is nothing short of amazing. How a woman diagnosed with drug resistant tuburculosis flew from India back to the USA illustrates that when globalization, lack of adequate prevention policies, and "It's-all-about-me" individualism mix how easy it will be to spread the next pandemics.
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POPSSo, where did she get her TB? As people are becoming more aware that globalization facilitates pandemics, health officials should remember tactics developed years ago to combat venereal diseases -- tracing the people route of infection backwards to find more of the network and offer treatment.
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POPSBird Flu in Russia - Chicken Kiev Nightmare! 600,000 chickens killed at one farm near Rostov on Don because of bird flu - that's a lot of chickens but industrial poultry farming is a global phenomena and is a part of what makes controlling or preventing the next killer pandemic flu more likely rather than less likely.
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POPSBird Flu Capital? Indonesia! It is crystal clear that Indonesia does not have a handle on the spread of bird flu among its people. See table and you will see that Viet Nam seems to have improved its abilities to cope. Let's hope they stay with it in the coming year.
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POPS7, 8 - lay them straight- 1957 Flu Redux Perhaps not a 50 million killer flu that's closer now - now that it's in pigs, the traditional next step to humans and human to human flu - but one similar to the one that killed a few million worldwide in 1957-1959 period.
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POPSTB is Preventable - Duh! People, it seems, love to forget past disasters or simply believe that old scourges don't happen here. Between 1910 and 1950 fighting TB was taken seriously. Once it got under "control" in developed nations - we began forgetting. Who remembers that Christmas Seals were sold to raise money to fight TB? Not many. Who remembers simple methods to prevent its spread - not many it seems.
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POPSTB Older, Much Older than we thought TB has been scourge robbing humankind of precious breath for 500,000 years. Maybe simplest translation of "Blessed are the poor in spirit" is a lot more direct than many theologians think too. TB was all too common in "Biblical" times. So, perhaps Jesus was simply saying - Blessed are those with TB. So that people would not think them as being punished and as worthy of Jesus' love and theirs. At any rate TB has been around for eons and is now making a come back due to lack of money for prevention and drugs. And it is taking new forms that are harder to fight. Christmas Seals, a tradition in USA and sold by Red Cross began as a fund raising effort to defeat TB in US.
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POPSLittle Saudi Arabia: Big Poultry Producer Saudi Arabia gets rich on oil but has joined global poultry market rush to make super profits on birds. The unintended consequence of all this profit chasing? Bird flu is and will remain global problem and most probable source of next global pandemic!
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POPS92 Buckle Your Shoe - Bird Flu Death 92 Virus passes from one to another from feces, saliva, sweat, and urine. "He said the victim, who had sold ornamental plants, bought plant fertilizer from the neighbor which may have been contaminated by the faeces of infected birds. No birds however had died in the area in the past six months and the poultry appeared healthy, he added."
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POPSSmith College - Site of Latest TB Scare Keeps on a coming - " My Bonnie has Tuberculosis My Bonnie has only one lung, My Bonnie spits blood in a bucket, And dries it and chews it for gum. Dentine, Dentine, Dentine gum, yum yum, yum yum. Dentine, Dentine, Dentine gum, yum yum. "
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POPSWhy would lazy people go to Dick's Sporting Goods? When Dick's went national, I was excited. Over the past five years, I have seen the amount of 2x, 3x, 4x clothes increase. Maybe it is just deserts that folks who want to "look" sporty, buy lazy lounger chair that collapse. Grin
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POPSCulling 4 million chickens won't stop bird flu in Arabia Very vigorous response by the Saudi's unfortunately, it will not guarantee keeping commercial poultry flocks free of avian flu. Vaccination will help but more novel or innovative means are called for. For example - they could stop raising chickens and other poultry for a year or so.
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POPSNeed for Cash and Protein from Poultry Drives Bird Flu The desire for cheap protein, as well as extra cash in cash strapped areas illustrates why "culling" or killing thousands of birds does not suppress re-emergence of avian influenza. If you need the cash, you hide some birds or you re-import roosters and hens with no or few questions asked. Another solution is needed to break the cycle.
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POPSTB? MD's Seem to Have Forgotten Too - At Patient's Risk Duh! Cancer patients are more at risk because treatments often lower their immune system's abilities. So you would think managers of a cancer clinic would be more careful about screening for the spread of infectious diseases in their facilities. They are not immune from having short memories or assuming that they are doing everything they should be for their patient's safety, when in fact they need to regularly scan the horizon for new and old threats. Shameful!
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POPSRecalls for Bad Blood Not Uncommon After all the problems with HIV tainted blood in the 1980's and 1990's, you'd think everyone would have blood security down pat. If it was a problem once, in a society driven by profit and time, it will be a problem again!
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POPSChina, Lunar New Year Food, and Bird Flu Nothing wrong with having New Year and chicken too but current methods of farming and (not) controlling the spread of bird flu can add up to disaster for Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans and world if it triggers a new pandemic flu. It takes 16 weeks to grow a tender chicken, goose or duck. Five weeks ago farmers hatched chickens, geese and ducks for live delivery in week before and after February 7, 2008 - Lunar New Year, or Tet in Viet Nam.
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POPSBird Flu, Tet, and Lunar New Year This is an old article but illustrates the connections between Tet, or Lunar New Year celebrations and the unintentional creating of conditions favorable to produce new versions of the flu or even a new pandemic from bird flu leaping to human to human pandemic flu..
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POPSOld Russia Global Leader in Drug-Resistant TB? The Russian government wants those who left in the 1990's to return home and is willing to pay their way. How about getting a handle on TB, as well as bird flu first and then invite people to come home? Then you can boost tourist trade too!
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POPSLunar New Year Poultry Production Drives Pandemic Risk In China, Viet Nam and South Korea Lunar New Year, or Tet celebrations are "gotta" have live chicken, goose, or duck to good luck and prosperity. This brings millions and millions of birds to holding pens for sale at just the right time. And it provides perfect breading ground for new/old flu and for a novel or new pandemic flu derived from bird flu. Wake up folks - culling alone will not stop millions of farmers from doing whatever they have to do to make the cash they need for their family's prosperity.
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POPSGet Ready for Lunar New Year and New Flu Pandemic Get Ready for Lunar New Year and New Flu Pandemic. As hundreds of thousands of growers step up production of poultry and pork for Lunar New Year, new versions of flu get cooked up and bird flu spreads again and perhaps turns into new pandemic or replay of "Spanish flu pandemic" from 1914-1918 era.
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POPSHow TB and Pandemic Scourges Get Passed Along How mobile are we today? How ignorant are people about ancient and present day public health dangers? How self-absorbed are some about "their good" but not at all about the good of the community or friends? That's today's formula for spreading disease that can reach you and your family!
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POPSHow Next Pandemic Will Explode, Not Evolve The Old School of virus development sees drift and shift as the means of evolution. This site shows how the system is also made up of quantum leaps of change to enable systems to regain balance - especially after we humans have upset a local, regional, or global balance. Viruses are nature's way of re-balancing what appears to be out of balance.
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POPSOpps! We have bird flu, now we don't, now we do again! Opps! Now we have bird flu, now we don't now we have it, now we don't! Need a new version of "Ring Round the Rosie" for when bird flu jumps to people in a form that foster pandemic - since government officials seem more concerned with sales of poultry, than health of people or birds.
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POPSBad Joke of the Day - India Bird Flu Free - Not! Bad joke or too much love for the rupee, dollar, yuan, or euro. If being avian influenza free for three months makes a state bird flu free, then China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Russia and other states have been flu free repeatedly and then - opps! - we have bird flu again. Bad joke for sake of making money.
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POPSYou Can't Change World Hunger with Pocket Change Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving - we do have a lot to be thankful for. My dessert offering is some food for thought from the World Bank research team. It would not take a huge change in government and individual behavior to cut world hunger in half in 8 years.
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POPSTB on March Again? TB, once though beaten, is making a comeback, due to our own lack of foresight, greed and just being plain dumb about how nature works as a system - and how we cannot pretend that we are apart from nature!
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POPSDespite having a cure, TB is number 1 killer The reason TB is making a comeback globally - same as other things $$$ - It's money honey. It's spreading among poor who live in close quarters and rich figure it won't get to them because they are not poor! That's attitude behind comeback of all diseases that we thought controlled. Maybe next dominate species will be smarter than we humans - grin/groan.
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POPSTurkey - TB World Capital? Unbelievable but apparently true. While world sleeps TB makes big comeback in Turkey, Russia and Southern Africa. That makes new resistant types of TB, only hours away using global flights as the way to speedily transmit the next pandemic.
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POPSBritish Bird Flu - New Outbreak! Yes, it is a blow to farming but account misses point that if bird flu becomes a global pandemic, farmers will be among the victims and will have, perhaps, 50 million fewer people to sell to worldwide!
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POPSPandemic Lottery Heats Up! As millions of farmers work hard to get billions of birds and pigs ready for the Lunar New Year in 2008 market, they begin the annual lottery wheel yet again for bird flu making a more effective jump to being a pandemic or simply creating a new variant of the old flu that resembles the 1918 version. If the current methods have not controlled repeated outbreaks of bird flu over the last five years, then it's time to try new methods - right?
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POPSWinter May Bring More Bird Flu as Poultry Market Grows UN warns of more bird flu but misses the obvious causes when it is noted that virus "likes" the cold weather. During Lunar New Year or Tet, millions of people want chicken, duck, goose or pork for their holiday meals and festivals. That drives millions of farmers and big farm corporations to raise chickens, ducks, geese and pigs for growing global "meat" market and the Lunar New Year. That, annually, contributes to a new version of flu and more opportunities for transmitting bird flu. Billions of birds and piglets jammed together to be sold live for the holiday are the perfect breeding ground for the next pandemic. Improved methods at that point are the key to breaking the flu pandemic cycle.
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POPSTB - Tuberculosis - dreaded past plague or next one? So you thought TB, like Polio had been eradicated? Not! Wrong on both counts. The "terror" that the world's political leaders should be actively worried and working on to provide security for their peoples are the ancient terrors of disease and hunger! Security from those terrors would be better protection from those who might want to recruit your people to become a "terrorist."
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