Bird flu mutation sparks concern Genetic tweak makes virus favour human nose and throat.

news@nature.com ^ | 13 January 2006 | Declan Butler

[neverdem]

Turkish Agriculture Ministry employees collect poultry for culling in the village of Cebeci, Turkey © WHO

Bird Flu Mutation Of Concern, Experts Say

They chased strays up and down the slippery, muddy hills and ravines, and when they caught one, they stuffed it into a plastic bag. Signs around the neighborhood read, "This District Has Chicken Plague."

Workers dressed in protective gear threw the bags into green containers that looked like large garbage cans. A sanitation worker attached a blue tube from a tank of carbon dioxide to the airtight container, opened the valve and killed the birds. "We prefer to say we are putting them to sleep," said Hikmet Karacay, an Agriculture Ministry official.

Residents, most of whom raised chickens as a sideline to collect the eggs, cooperated. "The real problem is the children," said Gilsen Kaya, who has two daughters. "They like the chickens. They are like pets. That's why it's better to do it at night, when they don't witness the whole thing."

[Alter Kaker]

Utter nonsense. We all know evolution is impossible! We have nothing to fear from mutating pathogens. Nothing!

/s
(a tag I wish I didn't have to append)

[txhurl]

Level 5?

[neverdem]

Level 5?

I don't know. I can't say if this mutation is critical. Our ignorance could be. I'm just a humble FP doc.

[Judith Anne]

I can't remember the exact definitions of the levels, but I think this could be level 4...

[StAnDeliver]

[ex-Texan]

Virus spreading from human to human by means of cough or sneeze 'droplets' is level four. (Airborne virus). Level four means "efficient human-to-human transmission." Level FIVE is evidence of a full blow pandemic. China has been covering up evidence of pandemic for months by using martial law and news black outs. People reporting the truth have been imprisoned.

[ex-Texan]

If avian flu strikes poultry farms, infecting chicken, KFC may face very trying times.

[joesnuffy]

Short Tyson

[joesnuffy]

We'll all be rich dead men...as we used to say on the Soo Line.

[TFMcGuire]

The genetic variant of the virus may be less destructive to lung tissue that the "Original" strain.

While its ability to be passed from person to person may be increasing, its virulence may be decreasing.

[TFMcGuire]

Sad choice of terms.

Mutation is a well known genetic phenomenon.

Beneficial mutations are not.

I suspect that the term mutation here is used in its general sense of any kind of change in genetic material.

Many microorganisms have the ability to pick of free DNA/RNA in, say, an infection environment and incorporate it into their own genetic code.

This makes no case for the twilight zone macroevolution the modern pseudos teach.

[From many - one.]

Very entertaining, but flapdodle nontheless.

[txhurl]

Aren't you the one whose girlfriend had to dump you over the flapdoodle thing?

[From many - one.]

Loser advertises by producing ad hominems.

[TheLion]

"China has been covering up evidence of pandemic for months by using martial law and news black outs. People reporting the truth have been imprisoned.

Any links?

[txhurl]

No! that was not an attack at all: I just seem to remember something funny you said along those lines that made me laugh, possibly years ago.

These virii threads go way back in time.

[From many - one.]

Ok. Next time 'll say codswallop and seewhat you make of that. ;->

[ex-Texan]

A few reports are posted Here. Recombinomics has been reporting China's efforts to hide deaths from bird flu for months. I have been posting reports on China when I run across them. Look on the older bird flu threads. Beijing's efforts to clamp down on news reports began during the SARS epidemic. Hundreds of patients were arrested and hidden away in military hospitals. Look up old SARS reports here. Chinese reporters and bloggers have been arrested and thrown into prison. Censorship and martial law is a fact of life in China today.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

BTTT!