I know several people that ran out and bought Tamiflu last year because of a possible avian flu pandemic. I'm fascinated by their behavior. I think that is a classic example of people overestimating the chances of a low probability event.
This also raises an interesting question about people in wealthy countries hording during a shortage - especially if there is an outbreak an Asia. If most of the medicine is in American medicine cabinets, wouldn't that make the pandemic worse?
And this also raises the issue of price gouging. Once again assuming Tamiflu works, and the worst happens (a pandemic occurs), should price determine who receives the medicine?
Lets hope this stays with the chickens (and other birds) so we don't have to answer these questions.
If it does breakout in Asia, you can bet you bottom dollar the governments there will not go begging for Tamiflu. I understand that an Indian company has already made a batch of it. And if the intelligence services of those countries are up to snuff, they know how to make it.
There is the question of making it fast and in great enough quanity.
Still billions and trillions are being spent on the war on terror whose consequences are not probably great except that an actual war are are helping that along and the war on chickens.
When there are greater terrors like overweight, diseases and poverty to contend with.
It is not just a problem for chickens. The virus is already devastating some wild bird populations in Asia,Europe and Africa. When the high-path H5N1 makes it to North America it will probably have a similar effect. Some genera and species can act as carriers with nearly 0% mortality while others have nearly 100% mortality --- this is a pretty nasty mix especially for waterfowl that have huge multi-species sites of congregation.
As time goes on, I'm beginning to move away from the pessimistic projection and towards the view that a pandemic won't break out. Sometimes you have to lett the evidence speak for itself.
In the 1980's I was a skeptic of Global Warming. The data wasn't convincing. But by the mid-90's, the evidence mounted (and the scientific consensus firmed), to the point where I changed my mind.
If Avian Flu doesn't break out in 2 years, I'm writing it off as a threat.
"I know several people that ran out and bought Tamiflu last year because of a possible avian flu pandemic. I'm fascinated by their behavior. I think that is a classic example of people overestimating the chances of a low probability event."
They were more likely to get run over on the way to the drugstore than to die of avian flu.
I studied virology & microb in general some 30-25 years ago... stone age compared to now. I was going to go that route (along with biochemistry) but was talked out of it by my boss (prof at the medical school) because as he put it... "All the infectious diseases were cured or close to being cured... you won't get funding." So I switched to chemical engineering where my grades were far worse but jobs were certain.
I graduated the same year the first mysterious AIDS cases were showing up in San Fran (1981)... If I'd gone the PhD route in biochem/microb I'd have finished my PhD about 1983-1984... there was funding for infectious disease by then.
Anyway... the real threat of Avian is when it re-combines & mutates again. It might have 'considerable constraints' now but there is no reason to believe the next big re-combo will have the same or any such limitations.
You have to understand how this recombination of genetic material occurs. In Asia where poultry & swine & people are all in close proximity a virus in one jumps over into another then picks up pieces of genetic material from OTHER viruses in the new victim before moving on.
Turns out there are considerable constraints going from birds to people but far fewer such constraints from swine to people. So if avian jumps back to swine, picks up some genetic material making it more contagious human-to-human... then jumps back to either birds or directly into people... then we got serious problems.
It's all that uncertainty & chance and multiple paths that makes this one so dangerous... along with the lethality - at least right now. If it recombines it might be less, the same or more virulent.
The stuff is cool as hell... in the way poisonous snakes are 'cool'. They are fine behind glass... but I wouldn't want to step on one.
i would be more interested in seeing the sales of automatic firearms and ammunition in response to a bird flu pandemic. why worry about Tamiflu and those hoarding it if you can just take it from them? I think there are bunkers being built in Wyoming as we speak.......
Another comment : chicken are nto worth tamiflu and other anti viruses.
So first point is :
Hey it's cool : I'm not a chicken
second is
Hey it's cool, I'm worth an antivirus dose.
I wonder how many domestic chicken are born a day. I suppose those are trillions...
Let's see. Suppose the average french guy eats... mmmh 10 chicken a year. Add in all those who make eggs. Say 1 chick per person. (2 egs a day. that may be a lot). And say a chick lasts 2 years.
That makes 10,5 chicken per people. IF that's true for the globe (I suppose not) then 60 billion chicken.
So 200 million dead chicken is like 20 million dead people now.
OOps no. Because less humans are born each year. So let's say approximately for a population of 6 billions people 100 million are born each year.
For chicken, since they die so fast any way, for a population of 60 billion chicken, may be 30 billions are born each year. Possibly more.
So 200 million in this case is (let's make it 300) is one of out of 100 new
baby chicken.
That is about the same as if 1 million people died each year on earth.
What kind of rare sickness causes the death of one million people on earth?
One out of 100 new born is not much. (tell this to those who chicken out afraid to one day not being worth a tamiflu dose)
Sod the bird flu; 36,000 die each year in the US alone from the man flu.
The thing that's spooky about diseases where the population has no immunity is they can really clean sweep the place.
I don't know if you've read '1491' by Charles Mann where he summerizes the recent thoughts on what North America looked like before Europeans... but some of the evidence they are finding suggests what can happen when a huge pandemic sweeps through a 'virgin population'... and as for what we look like to a recombo 'Avian' we'd be virgin & hot.
In one case in an area they call the 'Beni' in South America they think 95% of the population died in less than one generation. These were not savages living in the boonies either... prosperous & 'civilized', similar to Inca. Gone.
What happens is everyone gets sick almost simultaneously - VERY SICK - so sick no one can care for anyone let alone themselves. So they not only die from the disease but from dehydration, famine, whole societal collapse.
If 'Avian' jumps species like the euro-diseases jumped into the native american populations 400-500 years ago then tens and maybe hundreds of millions will die in the US alone. Fuggetabout over-population. It won't be a problem for another couple hundred years.
Probably never happen but if it did it would 'suck'. That's why the epidemiology folks are spooked.
I've been following H5N1 for several years. It's had some major recombinant evolutionary shifts since it's humble early stages in Indonesia. Most notably the speed it's moving across the planet and its infecting of other species, cats, tigers, minks, etc.
This is what causes many of the concerns for the scientists'. Especially as it moves it's way through Africa where there is virtually no regulatory control and fowl and swine commingle. It increases the mathematical odds of a deadly recombination considerably.
I would suggest doing research for yourselves and consider community/workplace preparations to be on the safe side.
Surprisingly, the US Government has a decent website - Flu.gov
I would suggest doing research for yourselves and consider community/workplace preparations to be on the safe side.
I agree.
One of the biggest risks should the disease become contagious human-to-human and then run wild would be the almost immediate disintegration of logistics... most importantly food supplies. Stores would run out as workers in the supply chain stopped showing up for work to avoid contact with the pulic... plus the possibility of mandatory quarentines... I had friends in Beijing during SARS and it was almost impossible to get stuff in or out.
Probably the single best preparation a person could make is having ample food & water in-house so they can impose their own personal quarantine... and reduce the risk of self exposure to others. A couple hundred bucks of rice & beans & canned veggies & fruit would be better prep than thousands of dollars of Tamiflu.
The chicken game says, you're always the chicken of someone else...
so far I'm not a chicken either...
df, I'll let you know if I become a chicken!
I know several people that ran out and bought Tamiflu last year because of a possible avian flu pandemic. I'm fascinated by their behavior. I think that is a classic example of people overestimating the chances of a low probability event.
This also raises an interesting question about people in wealthy countries hording during a shortage - especially if there is an outbreak an Asia. If most of the medicine is in American medicine cabinets, wouldn't that make the pandemic worse?
And this also raises the issue of price gouging. Once again assuming Tamiflu works, and the worst happens (a pandemic occurs), should price determine who receives the medicine?
Lets hope this stays with the chickens (and other birds) so we don't have to answer these questions.
Best Wishes.
If it does breakout in Asia, you can bet you bottom dollar the governments there will not go begging for Tamiflu. I understand that an Indian company has already made a batch of it. And if the intelligence services of those countries are up to snuff, they know how to make it.
There is the question of making it fast and in great enough quanity.
Still billions and trillions are being spent on the war on terror whose consequences are not probably great except that an actual war are are helping that along and the war on chickens.
When there are greater terrors like overweight, diseases and poverty to contend with.
It is not just a problem for chickens. The virus is already devastating some wild bird populations in Asia,Europe and Africa. When the high-path H5N1 makes it to North America it will probably have a similar effect. Some genera and species can act as carriers with nearly 0% mortality while others have nearly 100% mortality --- this is a pretty nasty mix especially for waterfowl that have huge multi-species sites of congregation.
As time goes on, I'm beginning to move away from the pessimistic projection and towards the view that a pandemic won't break out. Sometimes you have to lett the evidence speak for itself.
In the 1980's I was a skeptic of Global Warming. The data wasn't convincing. But by the mid-90's, the evidence mounted (and the scientific consensus firmed), to the point where I changed my mind.
If Avian Flu doesn't break out in 2 years, I'm writing it off as a threat.
just trying to figure out who is interested in the pandemic flu hype? any proposals? i have my ideas...
thanks for publishing that - great blog!
"I know several people that ran out and bought Tamiflu last year because of a possible avian flu pandemic. I'm fascinated by their behavior. I think that is a classic example of people overestimating the chances of a low probability event."
They were more likely to get run over on the way to the drugstore than to die of avian flu.
I studied virology & microb in general some 30-25 years ago... stone age compared to now. I was going to go that route (along with biochemistry) but was talked out of it by my boss (prof at the medical school) because as he put it... "All the infectious diseases were cured or close to being cured... you won't get funding." So I switched to chemical engineering where my grades were far worse but jobs were certain.
I graduated the same year the first mysterious AIDS cases were showing up in San Fran (1981)... If I'd gone the PhD route in biochem/microb I'd have finished my PhD about 1983-1984... there was funding for infectious disease by then.
Anyway... the real threat of Avian is when it re-combines & mutates again. It might have 'considerable constraints' now but there is no reason to believe the next big re-combo will have the same or any such limitations.
You have to understand how this recombination of genetic material occurs. In Asia where poultry & swine & people are all in close proximity a virus in one jumps over into another then picks up pieces of genetic material from OTHER viruses in the new victim before moving on.
Turns out there are considerable constraints going from birds to people but far fewer such constraints from swine to people. So if avian jumps back to swine, picks up some genetic material making it more contagious human-to-human... then jumps back to either birds or directly into people... then we got serious problems.
It's all that uncertainty & chance and multiple paths that makes this one so dangerous... along with the lethality - at least right now. If it recombines it might be less, the same or more virulent.
The stuff is cool as hell... in the way poisonous snakes are 'cool'. They are fine behind glass... but I wouldn't want to step on one.
i would be more interested in seeing the sales of automatic firearms and ammunition in response to a bird flu pandemic. why worry about Tamiflu and those hoarding it if you can just take it from them? I think there are bunkers being built in Wyoming as we speak.......
Sod the bird flu; 36,000 die each year in the US alone from the man flu.
Another comment : chicken are nto worth tamiflu and other anti viruses.
So first point is :
Hey it's cool : I'm not a chicken
second is
Hey it's cool, I'm worth an antivirus dose.
I wonder how many domestic chicken are born a day. I suppose those are trillions...
Let's see. Suppose the average french guy eats... mmmh 10 chicken a year. Add in all those who make eggs. Say 1 chick per person. (2 egs a day. that may be a lot). And say a chick lasts 2 years.
That makes 10,5 chicken per people. IF that's true for the globe (I suppose not) then 60 billion chicken.
So 200 million dead chicken is like 20 million dead people now.
OOps no. Because less humans are born each year. So let's say approximately for a population of 6 billions people 100 million are born each year.
For chicken, since they die so fast any way, for a population of 60 billion chicken, may be 30 billions are born each year. Possibly more.
So 200 million in this case is (let's make it 300) is one of out of 100 new
baby chicken.
That is about the same as if 1 million people died each year on earth.
What kind of rare sickness causes the death of one million people on earth?
One out of 100 new born is not much. (tell this to those who chicken out afraid to one day not being worth a tamiflu dose)
Sod the bird flu; 36,000 die each year in the US alone from the man flu.
The thing that's spooky about diseases where the population has no immunity is they can really clean sweep the place.
I don't know if you've read '1491' by Charles Mann where he summerizes the recent thoughts on what North America looked like before Europeans... but some of the evidence they are finding suggests what can happen when a huge pandemic sweeps through a 'virgin population'... and as for what we look like to a recombo 'Avian' we'd be virgin & hot.
In one case in an area they call the 'Beni' in South America they think 95% of the population died in less than one generation. These were not savages living in the boonies either... prosperous & 'civilized', similar to Inca. Gone.
What happens is everyone gets sick almost simultaneously - VERY SICK - so sick no one can care for anyone let alone themselves. So they not only die from the disease but from dehydration, famine, whole societal collapse.
If 'Avian' jumps species like the euro-diseases jumped into the native american populations 400-500 years ago then tens and maybe hundreds of millions will die in the US alone. Fuggetabout over-population. It won't be a problem for another couple hundred years.
Probably never happen but if it did it would 'suck'. That's why the epidemiology folks are spooked.
I've been following H5N1 for several years. It's had some major recombinant evolutionary shifts since it's humble early stages in Indonesia. Most notably the speed it's moving across the planet and its infecting of other species, cats, tigers, minks, etc.
This is what causes many of the concerns for the scientists'. Especially as it moves it's way through Africa where there is virtually no regulatory control and fowl and swine commingle. It increases the mathematical odds of a deadly recombination considerably.
I would suggest doing research for yourselves and consider community/workplace preparations to be on the safe side.
Surprisingly, the US Government has a decent website -
Flu.gov
For those with a science bent-
Recombinomics Commentary
For tracking-
Reuters AlertNet - Bird flu
An excellent blog-
Effect Measure
I would suggest doing research for yourselves and consider community/workplace preparations to be on the safe side.
I agree.
One of the biggest risks should the disease become contagious human-to-human and then run wild would be the almost immediate disintegration of logistics... most importantly food supplies. Stores would run out as workers in the supply chain stopped showing up for work to avoid contact with the pulic... plus the possibility of mandatory quarentines... I had friends in Beijing during SARS and it was almost impossible to get stuff in or out.
Probably the single best preparation a person could make is having ample food & water in-house so they can impose their own personal quarantine... and reduce the risk of self exposure to others. A couple hundred bucks of rice & beans & canned veggies & fruit would be better prep than thousands of dollars of Tamiflu.
df....your thoughts are exactly what I did....stash of food, water, medical supplies, etc to be able to acomplish reverse quarantine....Dr. Woodson's url http://nutrition.tufts.edu/pdf/research/famine/avian_flu/Home%20care%20of%20patients%20Grattan%20Woodson.pdf was my wake up call ...forwarded to all my family and friends. Since I live in earthquake country, its the right thing to do anyway. Thanks Calc for a great blog.