Experts question cause of Chinese outbreak

ScienceDaily ^ | 8/5/2005 | STEVE MITCHELL

[dila813]

hmmm??

[phoenix0468]

Are the Chicoms tinkering with bios? That's kind of scary to think.

[Aracelis]

Ping...

[dila813]

In addition, Ken Alibek, the former deputy chief of the Soviet biological-weapons program who now resides in the United States, previously said Soviet officials had detected a biological-weapons facility in China. Alibek also said two epidemics of hemorrhagic fever --a class that includes Ebola-- occurred in that area in the late 1980's that Soviet analysts presumed to be due to an accidental release from a lab where Chinese scientists were weaponizing viral diseases.

[dila813]

I wonder if we will get a hitch hiker from China on one of those cheap products we import??????

[185JHP]

"The Hot Zone" is a great read BUMP

[Khan Noonian Singh]

Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable.

W H Auden

[Aracelis]

Obviously their lab protocols are not as stringent as ours or the former Soviet Union. Thanks to oversight or deliberate release, we now have bird flu on the loose, and now Ebola?

To our Chinese brethren, "Thanks a lot, boneheads!"

[taxesareforever]

The real name for the disease is muslimitis.

[BlackVeil]

I feel sure that we are not getting the full story on this, and I find this disease outbreak alarming.

[BIGLOOK]

Something here to look into, Ping.

[Mitchell]

I feel sure that we are not getting the full story on this

Probably not, but I find it hard to believe that an Ebola outbreak could be kept quiet for long.

[neverdem]

"I believe that this is basically a bloodborne virus with the Ebola and bubonic plague as its main constituents," Wang said.

Bubonic plague plague (plague) (pl[amacr]g) [L. plaga, pestis; Gr. pl[emacr]g[emacr] stroke] 1. a severe acute or chronic enzootic or epizootic bacterial infection caused by Yersinia pestis, which occurs both endemically and epidemically worldwide; it is primarily a disease of urban and sylvatic rodents and is transmitted to humans by the bite of infected fleas, especially species of Leptopsylla, Nosopsylla, and Xenopsylla, or by contact with or ingestion of infected animals. Human-to-human infection usually occurs by inhalation of plague bacilli–laden droplet aerosols. The most common forms in humans are bubonic plague, pulmonic plague, and septicemic plague. 2. any of various contagious diseases in animals. Called also pest and pestis.

This strikes me as more of a case of the Chicoms having a lack of laboratory support to make the correct diagnosis and not wanting to lose face, as opposed to a bioweapons program combining an Ebola like virus and the bacteria that causes plague which became out of control. People can have more than one diagnosis, especially with chronic diseases. Physicians in the West are taught to consider multiple diagnoses, but to choose the one that includes the most evidence for making their assessment, especially in their diagnosis of acute disease. This Dr. Wang sounds like a quack.

U.N. Urges China to Do More Tests on Pig Disease in Humans

Ban antibiotics for livestock

I wouldn't be surprised if China was doing the same dumb, antibiotic feed supplements to their livestock.

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list. Anyone should post these links as they see fit.

[PGalt]

Thanks for the post; ping. Interesting.

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

Yikes.

[Doctor Stochastic]

The Chinese Ministry of Health has said the disease is swine flu, which is not actually a flu but an illness caused by the bacteria Streptococcus suis.

I thought that "swine flu" was caused by influenza type A virus. The reporting isn't that well researched.

[bkepley]

Sounds like the opening pages of a Tom Clancy novel.

[BIGLOOK]

About ten years ago I'd read about Bio weapons experimentation in Russia, inserting or infecting bacteria with a virus. Double whammy.

[dila813]

It is right, it is a bacteria infection.

Not a virus.

What is spreading is a virus though.

Someone is lying.