Useful Fools

When AIDS first hit the United States, AIDS activists were able to prevent some routine public health measures, resulting in a dramatically higher death toll than was necessary. They opposed contact tracing and quarantine, both normal measures with deadly contagious disease.

If one of the AIDS patients had contracted the less deadly multidrug resistant tuberculosis, they might have been confined to a hospital or other facility, by court order. But carrying and spreading HIV (the virus which causes AIDS) was made secret by laws pushed by gay rights activists. Hence contact tracing was not possible, and quarantine was and continues to be politically impossible.

Until Now…

A new, rapidly progressing variant of HIV has been found in several cases. If this form of HIV gets lose among the vulnerable populations (male homosexuals, IV drug users, and people from Pattern II countries), the result could be more dramatic than the original AIDS outbreak (See Note 1). It is also possible that the new HIV variant is a false alarm. [free registration required]

As a result, more coercive approaches are being considered [free registration required].

And yet, some still have their heads in the sand. Jon Givner, Lambda Legal Defense Fund, states:

We don’t want public health vigilantes going out and taking matters into their own hands, particularly if it means breaching the confidentially and civil rights of people with H.I.V.,”… “Frankly, I find it pretty scary.”

Jon, don’t you find the consequences of an epidemic of this disease even more frightening? If not, you are a dangerous idiot! And by the way, public health officials are, well, officials - sworn government officers with broad powers, not “vigilantes.”

On the other hand, Gabriel Rotello tells the truth:

“You can’t have a core group of people having sex with large numbers of people without amplifying any sexually transmitted disease that enters the system,” … “I don’t have any doubt that a resurgent H.I.V. epidemic will hit the gay population in the near future,” he said.

This time, the gay community will be put to the test, knowing full well the consequences of an epidemic of this new disease. As you can see, not all will support responsible action.

This is the time for that community to act responsibly and support common-sense and necessary public health measures.

The world will be watching.

Last Christmas, my extended family traveled to the Yucatan jungle (Belize - San Ignacio). 4 of us spent 5 nights in an “authentic thatched roof hut” (not our plan, of course). The consequences were potentially deadly, and very expensive. Yours truly was a fool!
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The World Health Organization is becoming seriously alarmed at a “historically unprecedented” epidemic of the most dangerous (to humans) strain of Avian Influenza. Their 22 January 2004 bullten is titled: “Avian influenza H5N1 infection in humans: urgent need to eliminate the animal reservoir - update 5″. The full bulletin is at the end of this entry. The reason for their concern is that if H5N1 “crossbreeds” with a human flu, the result could be a human epidemic of a very deadly flu like the one that killed 500,000 people in the United States, and 20 to 40 million worldwide in 1918.

Selected quotes:

The current situation is of serious concern for human health as well as for agriculture and the poultry industry. Rapid elimination of the H5N1 virus in bird populations should be given high priority as a matter of international public health importance.

Of all the avian influenza viruses, which normally cause infection in birds and pigs only, the H5N1 strain may have a unique capacity to cause severe disease, with high mortality, in humans.

Note: The previous post on this blog implied that China was covering up Avian Influenza H5N1 infections in Guangdong. At this point, China is actively cooperating with WHO and may not have been aware of H5N1 infections at the time it exported H5N1-tainted meat. However, it did cover up SARS for several months in 2002-2003.

UPDATE from Pro-Med:

WHO Asks China to Account for 2 Tourist Deaths in Early 2003
————————————————————
China is facing allegations it may have been the source of the Asia-wide
bird flu outbreak, with the World Health Organisation seeking an
explanation of the deaths of 2 Hong Kong tourists a year ago.

The British weekly New Scientist said it believes the outbreak began in
southern China in early 2003, allegedly after a poultry vaccination scheme
went wrong. The report has put the spotlight back on the 2 tourists who
died after visiting southern China in February 2003. The WHO has asked the
Chinese government for more information as part of efforts to establish the
history of the bird flu outbreak which has been detected in 10 Asian nations.

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Chinese corruption and secrecy allowed the SARS epidemic to get out of hand last year, when for several months they refused requests of international health workers to provide information on what they called “atypical pneumonia” in Guangdong province. That disease turned out to a new human viral disease, SARS, but the world’s scientists learned little about it until SARS turned up in Vietnam and Hong Kong.

Now there is a vastly more serious risk - pandemic lethal influenza - in danger of arising in Guangdong province, and the Chinese are again failing to provide adequate information! This in spite of the fact that Guangdong was the source of SARS, the infamous 1918 “Spanish Flu” pandemic (which killed 20-40 million people worldwide, especially young healthy adults, with 500,000 deaths in the U.S. alone). Guangdong remains the primary source of each year’s new flu variants, which cause tens of thousands of deaths just in the U.S. every year.
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Glenn Reynolds has commented about the level of hype associated with Hurricane Isabel. However, the comment “Category 2 Storm, Category 5 Hype” betrays a common misconception: that the category rating gives a good approximation of the danger to you. Lots of people say “I’ve ridden out a Category 2 before, so what’s the big deal?” But 1999’s Hurricane Floyd, “only” a category 2 hurricane, on the same track (and almost identical history) as Hurricane Isabel, killed 52 people and did massive damage. Hurricane Hugo was a category 2 storm until it was close to landfall, and then it rapidly intensified to category 4, causing massive damage.

Certainly the clubs at Baltimore’s Fells Point that had hurricane parties (hey, it’s only a category two) were surprised when they were flooded yesterday. The storm surge , amplified by Chesapeake Bay, combined with inland runoff produced by torrential rains, caused massive flooding. A record 6 foot storm surge came up the Chesapeake to Baltimore, yet, the category two winds didn’t even come close to Baltimore!
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Way back at the “Earth Summit” in 1992, the usual useful fools foisted a treaty on the world called the Convention on Biological Diversity. Actually, it wasn’t so much well meaning as greedy. The treaty was seen by third world countries as a way to grab a lot of money for any products resulting from biological finds in their territory.

Naturally, as one can easily predict, this is not what happened. It turns out there isn’t much money to be had. Furthermore, the treaty is already seriously hampering science:

“The treaty is an absolute disaster for scientists,” said a senior UN official on condition of anonymity. “It draws no distinction between scientists bioprospecting for drugs and pharmaceuticals, scientists conducting academic research, and those collecting samples for agricultural research and plant breeding. I feel sorry for the scientists. It’s a nightmare.”

Isn’t it amazing how these nice sounding eco-spasms, produced by statists and international bureaucrats, usually turn out to have more unintended consequences than benefits!

Fox News Reports: The IAEA has declared a “radiological emergency” based on the theft of “strategic quantities” of radioactive Americium in Nigeria - a country with a significant Muslim population and a history of Islamicist violence.

Presumable the terms “strategic quantities” means that enough has been stolen to be useful for one or more radiological bomb(s).
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Viruses are normally named after a landmark near where they were first discovered. Thus Ebola is named after the Ebola River, near the home of it’s first case. Marburg (a relative of Ebola) was first discovered in Marburg, Germany. Hantavirus was first discovered during the Korean War and was named after the Hantaan River.

In 1993 when several healthy young Navajo’s from near Muerto Canyon suddenly died within a short period of time, the new viral pathogen was named the “Muerto Canyon Virus”. The Navajo Tribe strongly objected to the name, so the virus became the “Four Corners Virus.” The tribe and others objected again, fearing harm to tourism.

In frustration, the virologists finally came up with a name that couldn’t offend anyone - even though it violated the tradition of virus naming: “Sin Nombre Virus“.

For those who remember their Latin, this means the “No Name Virus”! Science is once again is mangled by the forces of political correctness.

By the way, since the Sin Nombre Virus is too long for a news articles and hard for TV talking heads to pronounce, and the pathogen is of the Hantavirus family, it is now widely known as just Hantavirus.

[UPDATE:2/24/03 The H5N1 Influenza has no human influenza genes, and thus cannot spread from human to human.]

Reports of a mysterious pneumonia have been arriving from Guangdong Province of China since November 2002. At least five people have died and 305 hospitalized, including about 100 health care workers.

Recently two cases (one fatal) of “bird flu” (Influenza H5N1) were confirmed in an adjoining province, and may be the cause of the pneumonia outbreak.
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Here is a video [Channel 3 TV, Phoenix] taken in northern Arizona showing a large (or at least bright) piece coming from the shuttle as it crossed the Arizona sky Saturday morning. This may be the farthest west video of the event. The video has been forwarded to NASA.

Meanwhile there are a number of reports of debris being found in Arizona. Chances are that these are not from the shuttle, but DPS Hazmat crews and the FBI are currently on the scene. From the videos, one neighborhood certainly ended up with a bunch of little charred pieces of something.