Posted on 06/05/2011 3:17:04 PM PDT by red flanker
The German Die Welt online here reports that veterinary and medical experts are now saying that biogas plants may be the source of the lethal E. coli bacteria now running rampant through Germany. Although the disaster is nowhere the scale we saw in Bhopal, India, so far we have seen 18 dead and over 500 hospitalized. And needless to say, millions of Europeans are spooked.
Die Welt writes:
Ernst-Günther Hellwig, director of the Agricultural and Veterinary Academy in Horstmar, warns that the bacteria likely comes from new sources, saying the epidemic is a house-made German problem. ‘It is possible that the EHEC contagion comes from biogas plants,’ he said.”
Die Welt also reports that Hellwig has long been critical of biogas plants. Yet biogas industry proponents claim there is no connection between the current E. coli outbreak and biogas plant operations.
(Excerpt) Read more at notrickszone.com ...
Also ironic how quickly Germany blamed Spain. They were so sure it had to come from elsewhere.
From the blog, it appears to be pure speculation.
Shouldn’t be hard to test for the specific bacteria in the plants.
I read earlier that Germany uses human waste to fertilise its fields, with many affirmations to this point.
We use sewage on our fields too but I believe we’re still restricted to fields that grow animal fodder.
Calling them idiots is being kind...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2728989/posts
DNA Sequence Yields Clues to Germany’s ‘Super Toxic’ E. coli outbreak
ScienceInsider ^ | 2 June 2011 | Martin Enserink
Posted on Thursday, June 02, 2011 5:18:36 PM by neverdem
[snip]
” it has sequenced the microbe’s entire 5.2-million-base-pair genome—says that its acquisition of several virulence genes make this EHEC strain “supertoxic.” “
[snip]
Any biochemists out there??
How likely is this strain to have occurred ‘naturally’ or ‘accidentally’ *and* to have been ‘accidentally’ released into the food chain????
How likely is this strain to have occurred ‘naturally’ or ‘accidentally’ *and* to have been ‘accidentally’ released into the food chain????
I'm here, sir!
It's actually fairly easy for bacteria to exchange DNA, even with bacteria of a different species.
I don't have all the facts yet, merely having skimmed over the article that you linked, but apparently the E. coli bears a strong resemblance to a strain identified in Africa. Parts of Africa are notorious for producing novel pathogens--I advise staying away from the Rift Valley, for one.
In today's world, where people can travel thousands of miles in a single day, it is completely conceivable that someone carried this strain out of Africa to Europe, and it then picked up DNA from a European strain--maybe even MRSA--that already has multiple antibiotic resistances. The antibiotic resistance genes are carried on extra-chromosomal DNA that one cell can inject into another cell (i.e., through a mating process).
(I should add that the carrier was not necessarily a person--E. coli lives in any warm-blooded animal, not just people, and it can be carried on produce or in other products that provide it a food source.)
Long story short, it is quite possible for such a strain to arise naturally.
If there is a reasonable suspicion that the bacteria did not arise naturally--that someone inserted DNA into it in a laboratory setting--the DNA will have certain characteristics which will be revealed quite clearly during the sequencing. As the preliminary sequence is pieced together and refined, I fully expect it to be scrutinized for those characteristics. I suspect, though, that its origin will turn out to be natural.
” I’m here, sir! “
You certainly are - thank you!!
If I understand what you’re saying, I can put the tinfoil hat away, pending further information and analysis - correct??
The latest report I heard on Foxnews said possibly beansprouts they are supposedly testing now to see if they are the source.
That is correct.
You'd better believe it. The Greens have many ideas in common with the National Socialists. Both can be partly traced to the weird romantic-Gothic-pagan strain in German culture, as well as to Karl Marx.
“I advise staying away from the Rift Valley, for one.”
Any particular threat assessment for the Rift that has you worried?
I’ve spend many years of my life in and around the Rift Valley, including helping in numerous bush medical clinics. There are nasty things there, but that is true of many places on earth.
Auto accidents there killed more of my friends than anything, though had two friends die of cerebral malaria.
Actual danger and perceived danger are not always the same.
When I was going through flight school at Pensacola we were told of a study that followed Navy-Marine Corps pilots for 20 years. Aviation is inherently dangerous, military aviation more so and naval aviation the most dangerous. Yet the leading cause of death for pilots in this 20 year survey, which included war years, was auto accidents.
see also http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1920490/posts
“VERY Surprising Military Death Statistics, 1980 - 2007”
My first suspicion.
Could this be a stealthy jihadi attack?
Anybody else remember the cult in Oregon that sprayed salmonella on salad bars at restaurants?
No, nothing specific.
I based that statement on an observation that many of the nastier exotic infectious diseases seem to have their origin in or around the Rift Valley. There is, of course, the Rift Valley Fever virus, but I think several of the encephalitis viruses have their origins there. I believe Ebola virus first arose in that area, and monkeypox is a problem there, too. It's almost like that area is an incubator for new viruses to develop.
For the most part, the climate of the Rift is quite dry. Ebola probably came from the wet forests in southern Uganda, or possibly the Sudd, the enormous papyrus swamps around the White Nile in southern Sudan, locations of two very early outbreaks. I do remember talking to a doctor at the clinic at Kijabe, on the eastern slopes of the Rift, who had see recent cases of Rift Valley Fever. Kijabe is cooler & wetter than the floor of the Rift.
I was flying a helicopter in those areas in 1979-82 supporting missionary work, medical clinics, famine relief. In 1980, I met a doctor in Nairobi who was researching hemorrhagic fevers and could never get any blood samples because the patients died so quickly and/or the medical staff ran away in fear. Since I helped a lot with remote mobile clinics in the area and had very quick transport, he ran off copies of a paper on the diseases and asked me to pass them around to the nurses & doctors. If anyone could get serum from a case, please get it to him in Nairobi ASAP.
Thankfully for all of us, we never encountered it!
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