Flu + La Nina = Pandemic? 105
New submitter MrEricSir writes with some scary speculation from a BBC article about the confluence of climate and disease: "A correlation between illness and cold weather is nothing new but this one is very specific: La Nina changes the migratory patterns of birds which can (and often does, according to this theory) cause flu pandemics."
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Didn't you hear, last years colder wetter winter was caused by global warming. The same thing that is causing this warm winter. Oh it also caused it to rain last summer but not the summer before, everything weather wise is caused by man made global warming!
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Didn't you hear, last years colder wetter winter was caused by global warming.
You must live in Texas.
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This is why we don't listen to the mainstream media for scientific matters.
Also, last winter wasn't that cold and wet, except in the eastern US (and there, mostly just cold, not so much wet) where all the major media markets are, and so people think we actually had some ground-breakingly cold winter last year when in fact it really wasn't that bad, even for the areas that experienced it.
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Supposed to? I think you need to take statistics 101.
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It is actually having quite an effect. The thing is that the areas where there a lot of people who pay attention to this stuff: the US and Europe, La Ninas tend to produce warm and dry conditions in the winter. Of course, other things are going on, such as a massive stratospheric polar vortex, fed by a recent uptick in solar activity and other internal factors (potentially fall snowcover patterns, if you can believe that).
agriculture / climate (Score:2)
I'm guessing there's an intermediate step where the short term climate change means more/less domesticated birds, and/or one season's winter being more or less severe means more or less travel and more or less snow days.
Dude in China can't catch bird flu from a bird that he didn't keep because feed is so expensive, and I can't catch it from my coworker if I'm trapped at home in a blizzard, and/or its so dang warm I can't catch it at the mall because I'm playing outside in the beautiful weather.
Re:agriculture / climate (Score:4, Funny)
"dang warm I can't catch it at the mall because I'm playing outside in the beautiful weather."
Just watch out for the West Nile virus. Dengue fever is starting to show up in higher latitudes as well. Better yet, just don't leave the house. And disconnect the computer from the internet so you don't catch a virus that way either.
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... more/less domesticated birds, and/or one season's winter being more or less severe means more or less travel and more or less snow days.
Vague much?
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Vague much?
I love the specificity of this sentence.
La Niña? (Score:4, Informative)
The ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) usually exhibits a period of three to five years - so it's not exactly like La Niña is an uncommon event. If there's a correlation, it's pretty weak.
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Frustratingly, the PNAS article isn't published yet, so it's impossible to assess how they came to their conclusions. Did the Beeb break embargo, or are the scientists actually doing the press release before the paper?
La Nina? (Score:1)
Who's la Nina? Do you mean La Niña? Oh, right...
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Yes, that's what happened when I tried to submit the story. That's why I removed the accent.
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Or you could learn some HTML so you could write “La Niña.” It's pretty easy to look this stuff up...
Re:La Nina? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or you could learn some HTML so you could write “La Niña.” It's pretty easy to look this stuff up...
Why in the fuck would you use an HTML entity for a perfectly valid character?
It's SLASHDOT'S fault that anything unicode gets fucked to hell.
HTML entities are for ESCAPING special characters like < via < so they're interpreted and rendered as text and not code.
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It's not an accent, ñ is actually another letter of the alphabet in spanish. "...l m n ñ o p q..."
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NAO is only relevant for the eastern US and western Europe. The AO (Arctic Oscillation) is more relevant for the entire northern hemisphere and it indeed has been extremely positive (warm phase) this year in correlation with a strong polar vortex in both the troposphere and stratosphere. The vortex in the troposphere, at least, has weakened a bit of late, allowing the colder temperatures we've seen in the last week or two. Still not enough to really bring a true winter to the eastern US, but better than wha
La Nina is it. (Score:2)
It affects California, isn't that enough for you?
Re:Pandemic term (Score:5, Insightful)
The pandemic word is used to create terror. With two patients of the same desease in different continents you have a pandemic.
Oh shut up. Pandemics are real. And potentially very dangerous. Not everything is hype. Take some more happy pills or go over to one of the copyright threads and angst there.
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Yes, they are real but we have to learn to stay calm and don't panic.
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Yes, they are real but we have to learn to stay calm and don't panic.
Well that takes all the fun out of it.
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There's always the option for an end-of-the-world party.
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There's always the option for an end-of-the-world party.
Ummm, it's 2012 -- already booked.
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The last few 'pandemics' turned out to be hype, don't you think?
Remember how we were all gonna die from the flu and it turned out to be no worse than any other year?
That's not to say that there haven't been proper flu pandemics in history, just that nothing in recent years should ever have gotten the label. Keep crying wolf and one day you'll be ignored while a wolf eats you./
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Remember how we were all gonna die from the flu and it turned out to be no worse than any other year?
I had the swine flu.
It was exactly the same as the regular flu. Meaning since I wasn't elderly, a child, or living with a compromised immune system, I was knocked on my arse for a few days and got a lot of sleep of dubious quality.
The WHO promised me a horrifying but ultimately peaceful end to dealing with coworkers and clients. But here I remain. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. *puts on two pairs of sunglasses, goes back to dealing with bullshit*
It’s inevitable (Score:1)
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The problem with discussions of flu pandemics is that a significant number of people trot out the 1918-19 flu pandemic as what we should be afraid of. The problem with that is twofold. First, it came right on the heals of WWI, with most of
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"Well, it would be hard for the next flu pandemic to not be worse that the last one, since the last flu pandemic killed fewer people in the U.S. than the flu usually kills each year (I do not have worldwide numbers, but my impression is that they were pretty low as well). "
Depends on what sort of flu:
http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/ [stanford.edu]
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WWI certainly exacerbated the 1918 pandemic, but it was hitting parts of the world that really couldn't be considered part of the sphere of the war, so you seem to be stretching things a bit. As to modern medicines, that's true enough, but if you look at what's happened in the UK a few times over the last ten years with medical services absolutely swamped by high numbers of people seeking medical care, well, one can get the sense that if first world healthcare systems really got nailed hard, you can only tr
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A World Pandemic is eventual, and probably will be worse than previous Pandemics. With Climate Change increasing rapidly, Polution getting worse, and Population on the rise, I'm surprised a global virus hasn't killed millions of people yet.
Perhaps you're unfamiliar with HIV?
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We get it, the end is nigh, blah blah blah.
Yet another El Nino/La Nina story? (Score:2)
Holy cow, up until 10-15 years ago (I don't remember exactly when) most of us had never even heard of el nino/la nina.
Now it seems like there's a fairly regular interval at which people come out and say that one or the other of these is the cause of all sorts of great weirdness.
I honestly can't decide if there's any validity to it, or if people are just spending their research grants to tie their research to something which is on a 5-year (ish) cycle ... if you need to wait for the next cycle to continue yo
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Could be ... could be crank science ... could be conspiracy theories, aliens, Mayan Doomsday calendars, bad breath ... or irrefutable fact.
My point was up until the first time most of us heard of El Nino a decade or so ago ... well, nobody had ever heard of it. And then the next year it was El Nina ... and then every year of so since it's been one or the other that's causing something or
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Well, no.
El Nino/La Nina have long been known to affect the behaviour of hurricanes in the Gulf. So most of us who live down here have been paying attention to them for as long as I can remember...
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The reason you didn't hear about it is because we didn't really know about it until a few decades ago. It also got a lot of press with the massive 97/98 El Nino (that's when most people first heard of it) and also in 83/84, the last big El Nino before 97/98. It was first noticed in the late 1900s, though, so it's hardly new even in the scientific world. Now that we have much better measuring and modelling techniques, we can do more useful things with the knowledge of ENSO than we could in the past.
Meanwhile, hospital borne infections kill.... (Score:2)
and damage millions of people every year.
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/08/graphic-day-hospital-infections [motherjones.com]
UTF-8 (Score:2)
In other news, UTF-8 has not gained acceptance in US-centric websites.
It's not that hard: "La niña", "El niño"
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And Letterman's favorite, El Dingo.
Eventually the memes will collide and we'll have El Dingo ate my baby.
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PRESIDENT MADAGASCAR
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3533/3875134850_c4dc95299a.jpg [flickr.com]
Peruvian Flute bands?!? (Score:2)
Old news (Score:2)
Anyone who has seen "Morte a Venezia" (1971) already knows about the ability of climate to spread disease.
A.
Vitamin D3 (Score:2)
This causes a huge drop in natural Vitamin D3 levels. So I supplement with Vitamin D3, especially during the winter.
Now, I'm not a doctor or a scientist, but I never catch colds or the flu since doing this.
I also NEVER get the flu shots. I was exposed directly to the H1N1 swine flu for 3 weeks, and never came down with it.
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It just works out mathematically.
-1 You suffer pain
0 Pain and suffering are negligible.
1 You feel joy
Value of not taking the vaccine.
1. You don't get the Vaccine and you live in fear of getting the flu: -1
2. You don't get the Vaccine and you Don't get the flu: 0
3. You don't get the Vaccine and you get the flue: -1
4. You don't get the Vaccine and you save like $10: +1
Sum of Risk vs. Loss is -1
Value if you take the vaccine.
1. You get the Vaccine and feel good about being immune: +1
2. You get
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you do realise that the "link" between vaccinations and autism is complete bullshit - a deliberate fraud.
OTOH, the real risk is that if people take the vaccine, they'll die within days and then rise to turn into flesh-eating monsters. i'd call that at least a -1 on the risk side of the equation....but it balances out:
-1 take the vaccine and turn into an undead cannibal
vs
-1 don't take the vaccine and get eaten by your neighbours who did.
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Well, you need to take into consideration of two other factors:
1) Potential side effects. The cure could kill you, so to speak.
2) NPR had a story on the manufacturing of a pandemic panic, and it seems the flu shot is only 60% effective.
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There is also the possibility that the flu will kill you. The chances of that happening vs. side effects killing you are probably greater, but that's just a guess.
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Death due to influenza (or pneumonia) varies seasonally but tends to be in the 7% range (of all death types) [cdc.gov]. (Probably only 2% to 8% of those P&I deaths are actually one of the major strains of influenza - also from the CDC). Serious adverse reactions to a flu vaccine is typically less than 20 per 1,000,000. [sciencedirect.com] Death is a very small subset of serious adverse reactions.
I'm not going to walk the numbers all the way to apples and apples because it should be obvious from here.
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The way I understand it, it's not the flu itself that will kill you, but the body's prophylactic overreaction.
Does an immune system react with the same level of intensity with a vaccine as with a full-fledged, live flu?
Because if the worst-case vaccine scenario is less intense than the worst-case flu scenario, gimme the shot (as much as I hate needles).
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There is a few "risk factors" that are missed.
1. Get the flu from the vaccine even though the virus never reached your area.
2. Force Governments to spend billions of dollars on vaccines that are never used.
3. Avoid people, cancel vacations, etc in hopes of not getting disease even though disease is not present.
My issue with the use of pandemic is that the threshold is so low for it's use but people equating it to to events like the Black Death. Fewer people died from the "Bird Flu Pandemic" a few years ago
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There is a few "risk factors" that are missed.
1. Get the flu from the vaccine even though the virus never reached your area.
2. Force Governments to spend billions of dollars on vaccines that are never used.
3. Avoid people, cancel vacations, etc in hopes of not getting disease even though disease is not present.
My issue with the use of pandemic is that the threshold is so low for it's use but people equating it to to events like the Black Death. Fewer people died from the "Bird Flu Pandemic" a few years ago than normally die each flu season. Most people equate pandemic with mass death and that is just not always the case. Pandemic is mainly defined by mutation and spread and not virilance and mortality.
um... item 1 is pretty much impossible. Flu vaccines don't contain influenza... they only contain inactive culture (it would be like saying that this rabbit skin in my hand is suddenly going to cause the area to be overrun with rabbits). Furthermore, vaccines aren't used to stop people from getting infected; they're used to stop the movement of a virus from one location to another. The entire idea is that if the vaccine is used correctly, THE VIRUS WILL NEVER REACH YOUR AREA. If it does, the vaccine fai
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There are live flu vaccines. From the CDC site;
"The nasal-spray flu vaccine — a vaccine made with live, weakened flu viruses that is given as a nasal spray (sometimes called LAIV for “Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine”). The viruses in the nasal spray vaccine do not cause the flu. LAIV is approved for use in healthy* people 2 through 49 years of age who are not pregnant."
Here are some of the side effects possible from a LAIV vaccine;
"In children, side effects can include runny nose, headac
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There are live flu vaccines.
I stand corrected. I can't imagine why someone would ever want to infect themselves with such a thing, except as a last resort.
You are completely wrong here. Vaccines stopping people from being infected therefore when people move around they are not infected and therefore can not spread the infection. How do you think a vaccine that does not stop infection stops movement?
I wasn't talking about the effect, but the purpose. Of course a vaccine has to stop infection... but vaccines are not guaranteed to stop infection in an individual, as the vaccine may not "take," or the virus may mutate prior to exposure to the point where the immunity is worthless. It's about statistical probability, and decreasing the pandemic spread of the virus. I admit that
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Having seen two people hospitalised at work in the last couple of weeks with malaria, and one with typhoid fever a couple of months ago ... you're right. Though people who have forgotten (or never known) what serious infectious disease is may have a job believing that.
I had a pretty rough time with pertussis as a young child. It's pretty much my earliest memory. Not particularly life-threatening as we have socialised health care
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So.... should I get the vaccine, or just continue panicking?
It's so hard to choose between manufactured fear, and placebo relief.
Feel free to do both. Getting the vaccine doesn't help prevent panicking (about this variation of the flu, any variation of the flu, or anything else for that matter). ;-)
Re:pandemic == marketing hype (Score:5, Informative)
That's not what pandemic means. (A flu which affects a wide area and makes people sick is just regular old seasonal flu.) A pandemic is an epidemic of a single flu strain which occurs on a global scale.
Don't make me define "epidemic" for you.
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I don't suggest we make it a law. You're body is your body. But you should know exactly what you're doing when you decided to spout this anti-vaccine nonsense fad. You're risking lives. Not
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Um, just wondering, how did you arrive at this conclusion?
"you're directly responsible for their death"
Sounds like you need to go back to high school, and re-learn some basic logic.
If this is how you live your life, then your kids have worse things to fear than other non-vaccinated kids... Other kids might get the flu, now and then, and they will get better. But your kids will be permanently damaged by your fearful, irrational and retarded parenting. If they do ever get better, it will take decades. I can only hope that their own experiences later in
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And we shouldn't disallow cats because some people are allergic either...
Yes we should! Stupid walking balls of allergens....
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No, by definition, you're indirectly responsible. Not directly.
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Re:pandemic == marketing hype (Score:5, Informative)
It does not have to be "global scale". Here is a quote from the WHO criteria for declaring a pandemic.
"The Pandemic will be declared when the new virus sub-type has been shown to cause several outbreaks in at least one country, and to have spread to other countries, with consistent disease patterns indicating that serious morbidity and mortality is likely in at least one segment of the population."
So a new flu strain in two countries that could cause death in elderly people would be considered a pandemic. That is far from a global scale. It may eventually become global but does not need to be global to be declared a pandemic.
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National scale: multiple outbreaks in a single nation
Global scale: multiple outbreaks spanning multiple nations
No?
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Sorry but outbreaks is LA, San Fran and San Deigo with and outbreak in Tiajuana Mexico would qualify for "pandemic". Take a look at Europe; Say the outbreaks were in Luxumberg, Belgium and Holland. Multiple countries yet a small area but still qualifies as a pandemic. Neither of these examples cover a large area but both qualify as a pandemic because a virus crossed a border.
To me, global means involving countries from around the world. It does not mean two countries next to each other; That would be defin
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Interestingly, the media start reporting when they see "epidemic" and start handwaving doom and gloom when they see "pandemic" -- but they ignore the issue when they see "endemic".
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We all know what epidemic means. It's what is making us and our kids fat.
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The operative word is "may". It may affect a wide area. Or it may be limited to Joe down the street. Too many people think of it as a sure thing. That's why I think it is over hyped.
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Yours is the proper definition. The other is what it has come to mean for many after a few iterations of the news cycle of panic.
OMFG we're all going to DIIIIIIIIIIiiiiIIIIIeeeeeee
Followed in a month of two by: meh.
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the phrase is basically used to sell un-needed vaccinations. The definition is that it *may* affect a wide area. There is possibility that people might get sick.
In other news all research on flu patterns has been suspended since plopez doesn't want his flu vaccine and people *may* get sick.
As a benefit funds have been diverted into researching denail, bullshit, and ignorance. Researchers have already found three new methods for sticking your head in the sand. They are confident more discoveries will be made as they have the opportunity to observe plopez tomorrow.
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People can mock WHO all they want, and hide their heads in the sand, but eventually we're going to get hit with another pandemic like the 1918 flu pandemic, and we'll see where these various types of antivaccers assholes sit. Maybe the seasonal vaccine doesn't do fuck all, and I'm no worse off than I was without it. But even reducing the odds of getting a virulent flue strain seems like a goddamned good idea to me.
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I've read some speculation that the 1918 pandemic was especially virulent because it started among soldiers at the front. Normally, the sickest people with the flu stay home and the less sick are more likely to go out and infect others, leading to the virus becoming less dangerous over time. Among the soldiers, though, the less sick would stay with their companies, limiting their contagiousness, while the more sick would go to the military hospitals, where they would come into contact with more people, an