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Louisiana Confirms Four West Nile Virus Deaths
Reuters.com ^ | August 02, 2002 01:46 PM ET | By Michael Depp

Posted on 08/02/2002 12:00:33 PM PDT by Reverenist133

By Michael Depp

BATON ROUGE, La. (Reuters) - The West Nile virus has killed four of the 58 people in Louisiana known to have been infected with the rare mosquito-borne illness, putting this year's outbreak on pace to become the largest ever in the United States, state health officials said on Friday.

"There is no sign that this is going to go down. This is only the beginning," said Dr. Raoult Ratard, an epidemiologist with the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. "We'll probably end up with the worst outbreak."

(more)...

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; Culture/Society; Free Republic; Government
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To: LikeLight; mercy
DDT is safe: just ask the professor who ate it for 40 ...
... DDT is safe: just ask the professor who ate it for 40 years Culture/Society Editorial
Editorial Source: The Telegraph (UK) Published: 07/19/2001 Author ...

Banning DDT to control global population [Free Republic]
... Banning DDT to control global population Government Front Page News Source: ECO-LOGIC
-----ON-LINE---- Published: Jan/15/2001 Author: Paul K. Driessen Posted ...

Bring back DDT [Free Republic]
... Bring back DDT Culture/Society Editorial Source: Jewish World Review Published: April
24 2001 Author: Betsy Hart Posted on 04/24/2001 06:02:38 PDT by SJackson. ...

Audubon's Fly-by-Night Pesticide Campaign [Free Republic]
... 30 years after its successful — but untruthful — campaign against the insecticide
DDT, the Audubon Society is targeting lawn chemicals used to control grubs ...

CENTER NAMES TEN TOP SCARE CAMPAIGNS THREATENING [Free ...
... The Banning of DDT is first on the list of the Center’s Chicken Little Awards, largely
due to the alarmist, false writings of Rachel Carson. "The sole purpose ...

Killing Mosquitoes Or Killing Humans? [Free Republic]
... long since been proven wrong. By way of just one example, she claimed that DDT spraying
could wipe out the US robin population. Instead, it actually increased ...

Billions Served (benefits of biotechnology the Greens won't ...
... Of course. This is a negative effect. We always have this. Take the case of DDT.
When it was banned here in the US and the European countries, I testified ...

Scams, Scalawags, and an all-too-gullible Public...famous frauds sold to America

Bring Back DDT, and Save Lives from the Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2000.

Bring back DDT, Jewish World Review, April 24, 2001.

21 posted on 08/02/2002 5:41:05 PM PDT by backhoe
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To: bandlength
"well, time to buy stock in those companies that make those CO2 mosquito traps. . ."

Good idea. What do those cost, $495.00 per unit?

22 posted on 08/02/2002 5:57:00 PM PDT by blam
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To: bandlength; Prodigal Daughter; dennisw
>if it is a gov't. conspiracy, then floriduh is in a lot of trouble as the mosquito is their state bird.

Sigh!  And it has for so long been represented as a paradise.

23 posted on 08/02/2002 10:56:01 PM PDT by 2sheep
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To: Cachelot; Prodigal Daughter; Thinkin' Gal; Avoiding_Sulla; LadyDoc; happygrl; bearsgirl90; ...
>There is also a virus in the same family, USUV, which is currently breaking into Europe. Strangely enough, that variant seems to have been altered - it's not quite identical to the original virus. USUV has never been seen outside of Africa before, and has never caused deaths. Now it's out, and kills.

Do you think USUV is a genetically engineered virus designed to kill people?

24 posted on 08/03/2002 4:57:11 AM PDT by 2sheep
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To: 2sheep
Do you think USUV is a genetically engineered virus designed to kill people?

Don't know. The new variant has been sequenced and is 97% identical to the original. The original killed nothing, this one kills birds. It's not known what, if anything, it does to animals and humans.

25 posted on 08/03/2002 5:23:18 AM PDT by Cachelot
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To: Reverenist133

Fri Aug 2, 4:39 PM ET

The West Nile virus has killed four of the 58 people in Louisiana
known to have been infected with the rare mosquito-borne illness,
putting this year's outbreak on pace to become the largest ever in the
United States, state health officials said on August 2, 2002. (Rich
Clement/Reuters Graphic)

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20020802/westnile_0802_graphic.gif

26 posted on 08/03/2002 5:28:24 AM PDT by 2sheep
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To: Cachelot
In NY, for the first year, the virus was referred to as "West Nile-like", because it was not absolutely identical to West Nile either. Either it has since been confirmed to be the real thing, or the journos simply grew weary of confusing their viewers with the term "West Nile-like".

Anyway, if someone went to the trouble to engineer a virus as a weapon, you'd think they would aim for something a bit more potent than this. It kills hardly anyone, doesn't even make most victims sick, and isn't contagious from human to human.

27 posted on 08/03/2002 5:48:41 AM PDT by hellinahandcart
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To: Cachelot
This reminds me of the thread about a year ago about genetically altered black widow spiders in Russia.
28 posted on 08/03/2002 5:55:49 AM PDT by 2sheep
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To: My Favorite Headache
My coffee tastes funny this morning...it's imported.=o.
29 posted on 08/03/2002 6:13:48 AM PDT by MissAmericanPie
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To: Cachelot
The headline looks like something from the Enquirer.

KAZAKHSTAN TERRORIZED BY MUTATED SPIDERS

2001-08-08 - Kazakhstan is panic-stricken. In Karaganda region rumours are spread about mutated spiders attacking people. Even doctors seem to believe these rumours. Now entomologists’ turn has come, though there is no doubt, that they will come to the same conclusion: as an influence of some factors, local insects have mutated.
 
For the first time the mutants were noticed in Karaganda region two weeks ago, when a local resident arrived in hospital stung by a strange insect. After his description the doctors concluded, that the man had been stung by karakurt spider, in other words, by Black Widow spider, as it is called in the West. These spiders’ poison is several times stronger than the one of cobra.

The most strange thing is, that karakurts have never lived on Kazakhstan territory – they prefer deserts to steppe, and besides, Kazakhstan climate is not right for karakurts.  PRAVDA.Ru has already told about unexpected migration of karakurts from Kazakhstan to Altai region. In the city of Barnaul several people were stung by karakurts, the republic’s authorities even had to buy special serum in Uzbekistan (the medicine is sold only in the city of Tashkent).

So, at first Karaganda doctors did not pay much attention to this strange incident. Several days later, another strange thing appeared. The patient’s condition was developing in some other way, than it does after karakurt’s sting. Fever, loins’ paralysis and nephritis were being observed in him.  At the moment, already seven cases of karakurt’s sting have been registered in the region. Sanitary inspectors organized a special expedition for catching the insects. As a result, several specimens got to doctors’ hands. These caught spiders really resemble Black Widow spider, though they are bigger. There are some other distinctions.  Now sanitary epidemiological service supposes, people have suffered from mutating spiders. The caught spiders were handed over to entomologists, who have to make final conclusion. But it must be noticed, that articles about spiders very often appear in the press, though as a role they are seldom confirmed. For example a story about mutated spiders, which climbed out from cesspool in Ukraine and went to Russia. At that time, there were not any spiders, just scarabs well known to science were climbing out from the cesspool.   Pravda.RU - Kazakhstan terrorized by mutated spiders

Pravda.RU - The number of karakurt spiders’ victims increasing - 2001-7-17

"Black Widow" Spreading its Nets - Altai Region (RU)

30 posted on 08/03/2002 6:19:52 AM PDT by 2sheep
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To: dawn53
I actually had encephalitis when I was a kid, in the mid '60's.
I was probably 6 or 7, all I remember is being sick as a dog and the doctor actually making a housecall.
I think I was semi-quarantined, thus the housecall.
Have others had this?
31 posted on 08/03/2002 6:28:44 AM PDT by dtel
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To: Cachelot
Oh, I thought you meant it killed people (reply #7). Maybe those deaths in birds are occuring simply because the virus has spread to a new environment where they hadn't already been exposed to it for years?
32 posted on 08/03/2002 6:40:22 AM PDT by Styria
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To: Styria
Oh, I thought you meant it killed people (reply #7).

Actually, it's not known if this seemingly new variant does cause severe illness in humans.

Thing is, these viruses seem to be wandering out from their original "homelands", and they seem to be slightly different from the originals.

Here's another interesting one, this is unidentified but there's sort of a picture forming:



UNDIAGNOSED DEATHS - MADAGASCAR (FIANARANTSOA) (02)
***************************************************
A ProMED-mail post

ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases


Date: Thu 1 Aug 2002
From: Pierre Bigras 
Source: Agence France Presse, Thu 1 Aug 2002 [edited]


Madagascar: Death Toll Rises to 153 From Mystery Disease
--------------------------------------------------------
At least 153 people have died in Madagascar in the past 2 weeks from a viral
infection that has yet to identified by doctors, Health Minister Andry
Rasamindrakotroka said on Thu 1 Aug 2002. The announcement came one day
after he said 62 people had died in the southeastern village of Ikongo,
around 500 kilometers (300 miles) from the capital, Antananarivo [see ref.
below]. He said 89 people had died in the Alakamisy Ambohimaha region, and
that at least 2 more people had perished in Ikongo. Rasamindrakotroka
stressed that the figures were still coming in.

The virus [or other infectious agent] that causes the illness has not yet
been identified, but sufferers complain of flu-like symptoms that begin with
a severe headache. The pain then spreads to the neck and chest and provokes
a dry cough which, unless treated, results in death within 2 weeks. Doctors
specialising in contagious diseases and members of the Pasteur Institute of
Madagascar are at work trying to determine the cause of the outbreak.

--
Pierre Bigras


[As noted previously on ProMED, it is premature to assume that a virus
rather than any other type of infectious agent is responsible for this
outbreak of fatal disease. An arbovirus, such as West Nile virus, is one
possible candidate. However, recent work indicates that the African isolates
of West Nile virus are distinct phylogenically from the strain currently
spreading in North America, which appears to have a European or Middle
Eastern origin. - Mod.CP]

[see also:
Undiagnosed deaths - Madagascar (Fianarantsoa)      20020801.4906
1997
-----
West Nile Fever virus, lemurs - Madagascar: RFI      19970508.0952
1996
------
Plague - Madagascar      19961023.1790
1995
------
Plague - Madagascar (press report)      19950922.0873
Plague - Madagascar (2) 19951004.0908
Plague - Madagascar (3)19951011.0935]
.......................................jw/cp/pg/jw


*##########################################################*
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are  posted,  but  the  accuracy  and  completeness  of  the
information,   and  of  any  statements  or  opinions  based
thereon, are not guaranteed. The reader assumes all risks in
using information posted or archived by  ProMED-mail.   ISID
and  its  associated  service  providers  shall not be  held
responsible for errors or omissions or  held liable for  any
damages incurred as a result of use or reliance upon  posted
or archived material.
************************************************************
Visit ProMED-mail's web site at .
Send  all  items  for   posting  to:   promed@promedmail.org
(NOT to  an  individual moderator).  If you do not give your
full name and  affiliation, it  may  not  be  posted.   Send
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33 posted on 08/03/2002 11:23:31 AM PDT by Cachelot
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To: mercy
This is being spread by mosquitos feeding on birds. We should eliminate all hunting laws on birds and let the teenagers with BB guns go at it. Problem solved!!
34 posted on 08/04/2002 7:29:04 AM PDT by Jefferson1776
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To: 2sheep
,Do you think USUV is a genetically engineered virus designed to kill people?

No. Like west nile virus, it's too inefficient.

There are all kinds of animal viruses that change species and attack men. Most require either direct contact, or a vector (flea, mosquito, etc).

The really dangerous illnesses would be lethal and spread worldwide quickly, killing more Arabs etc than Americans.

These things can occur spontaneously: and previous epidemics spread with armies and along trade routes. For example, malaria spread to ancient Rome with food shipments from North Africa, plague via the army fighting in Persia. Local bugs can spread to new populations where there is little immunity, and wipe out whole populations.

the real worry is something like the 1917 influenza epidemic, which crossed from (?)pigs and killed 40 million over the whole world in a two year period.

35 posted on 08/09/2002 4:45:16 PM PDT by LadyDoc
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