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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 02/16/2006 : 02:14:36 [Permalink]
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Be screed: quote:
Don't forget the eye shield with the face mask.
Oh, great, might as well buy a used spacesuit while I'm at it. The approximate repeat of a plague that killed my granddaddy about 90 years ago has started to worry me seriously. About the only upside is that the Spanish flu killed young and healthy people preferentially to those who were old and sickly. I've heard similar statements about this bird flu.
If that's correct, there's my advantage!
See you in Hell, youngsters!
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 02/16/2006 : 05:07:43 [Permalink]
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| It is hitting the young ones hard so far. Can't quite say if it's the virus or the fact the kids kick chopped off chicken heads around for fun. |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2006 : 23:52:56 [Permalink]
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Of course, if chicken's not your thing...
Infectious disease listserve**
**Remember, don't sign up, bookmark it if you're interested. Their address files are ironically attacked by computer virus e-mails on a regular basis.
quote:
Date: Wed 22 Feb 2006...
2 Taiwanese men have been arrested for allegedly smuggling raw duck tongues from China in the 1st such case amid lingering concerns over bird flu, an official said yesterday [14 Apr *2005*]. Investigators in central Taiwan nabbed the 2 men early Wednesday and confiscated nearly 4 tons of tongues from about a million ducks, said the official at the Bureau of Investigation. The tongues, with a retail value of about NT 10 million (USD 317 000), were suspected to have been shipped from China, the official said. They were destroyed immediately, as China is considered vulnerable to bird flu, he said.
Cooked duck tongues are a delicacy among many locals and Hong Kong tourists.
.....
[A few days ago, Mod.AS quoted Mod.JW: "2 days ago, 20 kg of chicken tongues from China were intercepted at Rio de Janeiro's international airport, presumably destined for Chinese restaurants in Brazil." One may wonder whether the Journal do Brasil report was totally correct as to the quantity confiscated. - Mod.MHJ]
******
Date: Wed 22 Feb 2006...
SITC in Connecticut (CT) has recently confirmed the importation of frozen, boneless chicken feet from Thailand being sold as jellyfish. The packages of prohibited boneless chicken feet have no labels or markings and have been found in Connecticut and Massachusetts (MA).
SITC (CT) found 2700 lbs. [2.5 tons] of product in a cold storage facility in boxes labeled jellyfish, product of Thailand. The importer, Food King, Inc. located in West Haven, CT, admitted the product was not manifested or declared on the importation documents. It was brought into the country in a frozen container with various types of seafood. 3 shipments of chicken feet totaling over 9000 lbs have entered into the country since March 2004, all un-manifested on the import documents and packed in boxes labeled jellyfish. The Thailand distributor of record is Wales and Company, Universe Limited, Bangkok, Thailand.
In markets, the product can be found with frozen squid and fish, not with the poultry products. The importer is conducting a voluntary recall of the chicken feet, removing the product from sale for destruction from 68 stores located in CT, Georgia, Kentucky, MA, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island Tennessee, and Wisconsin.
It is alleged that other importers are utilizing the same smuggling methods (marking chicken feet as jellyfish) to illegally import the product. This product was found in Florida in 2003 labeled Ka Kai (Thai for chicken feet). In this case, the importer of record, International Inc., cannot be confirmed to be tied into the CT distributor. If the product is found at the POE's [ports of entry], mis-manifested, it is recommended that CBP seize the product for destruction, issuing a violation. Importer and consignee information should be forwarded to the local SITC office for market survey purposes.
And no matter where you live, you're not really that far away...
quote:
[A 15 Feb 2006 report says 21 tons of poultry was intercepted by local police in Benidorm, Spain, as it was being imported without control from China -- see: ProMED post 20060221.0565 Avian influenza - worldwide (27): Europe, Asia, Africa. - Mod.JW]
[One can safely presume that the smuggling of poultry products out of China and Thailand is a long established industry to wherever there is a market for their products and an Asian resident population large enough to want these old country delicacies. Then, all one needs is a few chickens loose and scratching around out by the garbage behind the kitchen or restaurant. It would be interesting to know, for example, how often and in what quantity similar products are intercepted along the Pacific Coast in North, Central or South America, or in Rotterdam, Hamburg or Marseilles. - Mod.MHJ]
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2006 : 00:40:49 [Permalink]
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Smuggled boneless chicken feet, sold as jellyfish?
There are at least three things that are just wrong with the very bizarre mental picture I'm getting here. First, smuggling food is bad. You don't know who has spit in it. Second, boneless chicken feet, one would imagine, require a huge overseas industry of little children in sweatshops using scalpels, carefully slicing the feet meat from the delicate feet bones. Third, when I buy my jellyfish, I want the delicious real McCoy, not an ersatz something that "tastes just like chicken."
Thank you, B., for bringing this to our attention!
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 02/23/2006 00:41:52 |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2006 : 15:48:57 [Permalink]
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| If you think it's hard to debone chicken feet, how hard must it be to get 4 tons of duck tongues together? |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2006 : 16:03:12 [Permalink]
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B. noted: quote:
If you think it's hard to debone chicken feet, how hard must it be to get 4 tons of duck tongues together?
Yet another horrible vision which may pop up in my dreams, B. Thanks much!
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2006 : 21:37:21 [Permalink]
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Beskeptigal, I have followed your advice, and now have most of my "pandemic kit." I have the R95 surgical mask, and eye protection as well. I'm still awaiting arrival of the antiseptic hand wipes.
I'm retired, so need not often go outside, during a pandemic. With this gear, I suppose I will be somewhat safer when having to venture out of a hunker-down posture to get food supplies.
I'll say one thing right now, there's going to have be a lot of rotting cadavers in the gutters before I'll venture out wearing this stuff.
Major League dorkwear, especially the cap:
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 02/24/2006 21:44:12 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2006 : 23:10:44 [Permalink]
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hahaha! Nice one Half!
Oh... I feel I should mention:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11551882/
H5N1 in FRANCE! Thousands of birds on a turkey farm dead from it, the farm quarantined and the rest of the birds destroyed.
I wonder if the 1918 flu had a similair pattern in the decade before it hit humans, I seem to faintly recall reading something about this somewhere.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2006 : 23:54:53 [Permalink]
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Thanks for the link, Dude.
Also, good general backgound article on H5N1 avian flu at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H5N1
So far, there have been just 170 reported cases in humans worldwide, but with a 54.1% fatality rate. This threatens to be an enormous pandemic, when it becomes transmissible from human to human. The world may soon have a lot fewer human beings.
There are roughly 6,446,000,000 people in the world at present. If we were to assume that deaths in a future human-to-human world H5N1 pandemic exactly follow the 54.1% fatality rate, then 3,487,286,000 people would die, leaving a population of a mere 2,958,714,000 people on the planet, about the number on earth when this 60-year-old was entering high school.
Real estate prices will go to hell. On the other hand, most survivors will be able to find vacant homes.
[Edited due to my typos, and an error in Wikipedia's "Population" article, which shows the world population, in one of their citations, at about 64 billion, (or 64 million million), instead of the more rational 6.4 billion.]
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 02/25/2006 01:31:17 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2006 : 11:44:49 [Permalink]
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That many people wouldn't die Half. No way would everyone on the planet be exposed to it.
Nor would everyone exposed to it develope the flu.
If this thing jumps the species barrier we are going to see an unbelievable number of fatalities, but the worldwide numbers will probably be measured in the tens of millions, not billions. 1918 flu killed somewhere between 20 and 40 million people worldwide.
Total world population was aprox 2Billion in 1918.
Going with 40million flu deaths in 1918, if H5N1 becomes similair to 1918 flu, then we could see something like 80million deaths worldwide. This, of course, will be effected by how well the various countries and the WHO can enforce preventive measures and control the epidemic, and a whole host of other factors... there is a chance we could see far fewer fatalities (atleast in the western world) than a simple proportional comparison would suggest.
It could be very ugly. Millions of people could still die.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2006 : 12:26:35 [Permalink]
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I'm not an epidemiologist, but I play a piss-poor one on the Internet.
Dude objected:quote:
That many people wouldn't die Half. No way would everyone on the planet be exposed to it.
But wouldn't essentially all the dense population groups in the world likely be exposed?
Dude further noted:quote:
Nor would everyone exposed to it develope the flu.
Ah, of course, thanks for setting me straight on that very important point. There's bound to be some degree of resistance already in the population. Is the any guesstimate as to the percentage of exposed people who would actually contract the disease? Are we having to rely on the Spanish Flu's course only?
Wikipedia's article (now that I've bothered to read it more closely) says: quote:
The current projected worst case scenario for a H5N1 pandemic is somewhere around 150 million human deaths directly due to H5N1 infection (or two to three percent of the world's human population). No one knows what the chances are for this worst case scenario.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 02/25/2006 12:34:41 |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2006 : 19:51:50 [Permalink]
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Annual flu incidence in the USA is 15-30%. I don't have any idea what the numbers are in different countries or what we would see if people washed their hands, wore face shields and sick people stayed home and/or covered their coughs.
You only needed an N95 HM. Hope you didn't pay too much more for the R95.
Very stupid NIOSH nomenclature:
The N series of filters (Not resistant to oil) is appropriate for all airborne solids (particulate) when there are no oil-based products also in the air.
The R series (Resistant to oil) should only be used for an 8-hour shift when solvent or oil mist is present in the air. This filter resists oil but may break down in contact with oil or solvent over a long time.
When using P series filters (oil-Proof), check the manufacturer's recommended service life to determine how long the filter can be used when oil aerosols are present.
The time limits apply to absorptive filters within the masks that become saturated with chemicals/vapors they are filtering. N masks are strictly mechanical filters so function as long as you can suck air through them and they fit tight. Viruses are smaller than the mechanical filter but it is believed that most influenza will be in droplets that are large enough for the filter to work. All R and P masks also have N filters so you can ignore the time limit on your R mask, (which actually started when you took it out of its sealed package anyway).  |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2006 : 20:44:38 [Permalink]
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B: Worried: quote:
You only needed an N95 HM. Hope you didn't pay too much more for the R95.
Sorry, my bad. I bought a box of thirty N95 filters, not R95's. I didn't figure oil aerosols would be a problem, so got cheap 3M N95's. For some reason, I picked up R95 in my head, and keep typing it in error.
Thanks for the futher information! I kinda figured the filtration was for catching tiny droplets rather than catching the much tinier viruses.
I once told a doctor that I thought viruses evolved the knack of causing sneezes for their own survival, a sort of aerosol delivery system. He told me that was nonsense. Yet another time I have ignored an Argument from Authority.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2006 : 11:36:03 [Permalink]
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Of course some viruses evolved to be shot into the air via coughing. The doctor would be shortsighted not to recognize that.
Airborne viruses wouldn't be stopped completely by mechanical filters. If they were you could barely get air through the filter. According to CDC they are assuming flu will be mostly droplet spread and not airborne. Droplet spread means cough to face (about 3 feet) and contaminated surfaces to hand to eye, nose or mouth.
Not to be confused with the droplet nuclei of TB bacteria which are big enough to be filtered, (TB bacteria are ~2 microns, viruses mostly <1 micron), but are still spread via airborne route and actually not on surfaces. (Bovine TB in unpasteurized milk is a different bug.)
The difference between airborne and droplet spread is distance traveled and time suspended in air. How contagious is a separate matter from means of transmission.
I give you this as these are the facts so often confused by the media and everyone else. |
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 02/26/2006 11:36:49 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2006 : 13:29:46 [Permalink]
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B. concluded: quote:
I give you this as these are the facts so often confused by the media and everyone else.
Much appreciated. It helps to get a good understanding before the panic -- and the panic-driven even worse reporting -- begins.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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