Scientists Say Spread of Schmallenberg Virus Is 'Warning To Europe' 113
redletterdave writes "The outbreak of a new livestock disease in western Europe last year, particularly harmful to offspring, could move further into areas surrounding the worst affected countries in the next cycle of new births, scientists say. The Schmallenberg virus — named after the German town where it was first detected in November — infected sheep and cows on at least 2,600 farms in eight EU countries last year, most likely between August and October. Thought to have been spread for hundreds of miles across Europe by biting midges and warm late summer winds, the virus has since been confirmed in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Italy, Spain and Britain. 'It is certainly a warning for the whole world in the sense that, unfortunately, new threats may emerge,' said Alberto Laddomada, a former virologist who heads the animal health unit at the European Commission. 'This virus has spread very, very quickly in the European Union amongst an animal population of many millions.'"
Stay current with patches (Score:1)
It's the only way to keep yourself protected.
Re:Stay current with patches (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the only way to keep yourself protected.
It's funny now; but it won't be when your continued enrollment in Monsanto Genuine Advantage is your only hope for agriculture!
Re:Stay current with vaccines (Score:2)
Vaccines, patches, same thing right?
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Still in trouble if it's a 0-day virus (no available patch/vaccine).
It's spread by midges? (Score:1)
Are hobbits susceptible to this virus?
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Probably safest not to bite any midges OR hobbits.
While it sounds scary... (Score:5, Informative)
For the lazy, the wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org] on the virus. While it can spread easily, it sounds like the virus has a short life span and there is a vacine already developed for it.
Though, it can have some nasty effects on pregnant farm animals, it seems unclear (at least to me), if animals that were effected in the past then get pregnant afterwards still have birthing issues.
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A big spike in spontaneous abortions and horrid fetal malformations, on the other hand, would really turn up the cheer...
Biting Midgets...? (Score:1)
Am I the only one who read it as "biting midgets" at first?
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It expands the range of vectors that never used to be present in those parts of Europe. For the same reason, expect "tropical" diseases to expand their ranges, as the insects that transmit them move towards newly-warm regions.
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That's crazy talk, good sir. Human behavior can't possibly have consequences on the natural world!
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That's crazy talk, good sir. Human behavior can't possibly have consequences on the natural world!
Yeah, that's why it is completely safe to make fire in the forest. :-)
Gee (Score:2)
Maybe we should stop monocropping the world.
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Right, a virus that attacks several species of ruminants is going to be controlled through raising different strains.
Brilliant!
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You could just admit that you know nothing about virology and be done with it.
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Maybe we should stop monocropping the world.
Cutting down on the human population certainly would help the rest of the planet.
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For those who believe in that I can only say that each should start with themselves.
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Nah, it's better to start with the short-sighted idiot over-consumers with a fetish for instant gratification and deep-rooted insecurities leading to the War on X (for all values of X.) Luckily, disease won't give a fuck. Most of us will die regardless. Make sure to thank Big Pharma for the antibiotic misuse on the way out!
Jared Diamond said Europe has been the source. (Score:1, Offtopic)
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Good. The world could really use a LOT less humans.
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Oh, please, wise anonymous. Educate me about the glories of an imperialistic, consumer-based world.
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Please. I really wish you well in your endeavors to reduce human population.
Now that the knowledge of the solution has been passed on by you to others. You can now start on the actual reduction.
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"The pandemic could be catastrophic."
We have billions of humans, which literally means we can afford to lose, as a species,, a few billion of those.
Not that it wouldn't suck to be a casualty, but Nature is robust and designed to replace losses.
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We're tried that, it hasn't helped. Countless wars has bred a human race that is genetically inferior and more aggressive.
Nonsense (Score:1)
Schmallenberg Virus, uuuh, Schmallenberg Virus?
Germany (Score:1)
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Why do all these horrible new viruses emerge from Germany?
Schadenfreude?
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Nein. Wirtschaftssicherheit.
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Secret underground Nazi weapons labs?
Occasional travel from the far side of the moon?
Resisting autobahn travel on a car bumper makes for additional selection pressure?
Lots of possibilities.
Please tell me... (Score:1)
Someone please tell me that people all over are not demanding an increase in antibiotic usage as a result of this?
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Why was I modded off-topic? Apparently the person has no notion of the fact that people continually demand antibiotics for *viral* infections.
Anyone else read that as "biting midgets"? (Score:1)
Obligatory Leftist/Libertarian Web Responses: (Score:2)
Good we need the human race to die
Blame Global Warming
Blame Capitalism
Blame Monsanto
Meat is Murder
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Why must there always be blame?
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Why must there always be blame?
It's easier than thinking.
Survivors (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_(2008_TV_series) [wikipedia.org]
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Luckily there's never any human illness or casualties from contagion on crops, nor strains of fungus, mold, or insects that desimate farmlands...
Do plant contagions or plant destroying insects evolve to directly attack humans?
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For the non-transmissible diseases/insects : You wont give a shit about the direct danger posed by them if they indirectly cause your starvation.
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For contagions: No. They do not evolve in livestock to directly attack humans any more so than they do from plants. They evolve in their host and can be transmissible, and this is just as true from plants as it is from livestock.
Influenza viruses frequently fester in livestock, jump to humans and then spread throughout the world.
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Far more because there's far more interaction between humans and livestock then human and wildlife.
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Ergot?
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MKULTRA?
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Rubber spoon rubber spoon...
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. . .so the plant-farmers aren't exactly safe...
Of course they aren't exactly safe. The questions are which is safer, and by how much?
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Re:Another reason to reduce animal agriculture (Score:4, Interesting)
starvation will kill you every bit as readily as contagion will
If you live in a agricultural monoculture. Think of the Irish potato blight. Something that hits rice hard, would be rough on Asia.
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starvation will kill you every bit as readily as contagion will
If you live in a agricultural monoculture. Think of the Irish potato blight. Something that hits rice hard, would be rough on Asia.
As a fungus in good standing, I would like to suggest that "Ug99" [wikipedia.org], which cuts through wheat like nobody's business, could also ruin some days...
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Good thing wheat and the grain industry in general are completely unnecessary for human subsistence.
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That's very true. Corn is completely needless.
With this in mind, human subsistence can be attained just by almost anything else, and it doesn't matter if you make your diet based on anything else, because a loss of supply, be it a factory shut down if you live on twinkies (okay, silly example) or a crop blight if you live on corn, unnecessary in a diet as it is, still means famine and starvation. By extension, rice isn't necessary for human subsistence, but if you're subsisting on rice, losing it is
Re:Another reason to reduce animal agriculture (Score:4, Insightful)
The spreading of viruses among vegetables seems like the most dangerous motivator to reduce vegetable agriculture. The subjective pro of "fruits/vegetables/etc. tastes good" is beginning to look weaker and weaker against the many cons.
Great! Looks like the only option is to become a mineralivore...
Re:Another reason to reduce animal agriculture (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not in this case. This virus attacks quite broadly, affecting ruminants in general.
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That would be the people who don't eat meat simply because they don't like it. Yes, they exist. I've once met one.
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Which is why you need to become a mushroomian. It's good for the environment, and okay for you!
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I'm a rational vegetarian and I've never had anyone learn I don't eat meat and not ask for
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of Beef, Chicken,Pork,Turkey,Moose (best tasting meat in the world),Caribou,Grizzly,Black,Brown bears, Mt. Goat,Elk,Deer,Antelope,Salmon,
<MontyPythonQuote>
And the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths, and carp and anchovies, and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit-bats and large chu...
</MontyPythonQuote>
Sorry, a long day...
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Unless you're able to coordinate and schedule the growing/raising at a county or state level you arent going to have impact on mutation or spread of disease. You may actually cause more harm than good by forcing ecosystems in a large area to adapt rap
Re:Another reason to reduce animal agriculture (Score:5, Informative)
You don't understand a damn thing about monocropping. It is the difference between using inbred lines that are all susceptible to the same pandemic disease versus landrace varieties that provide buffers that can potentially stop an outbreak because -- gasp -- differing genetics differ in whether diseases may spread (and, consequently, mutate and spread onward) in them easily or not.
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I farm and raise horses. I do have a little bit of a clue about it. I cant get my neighbors to agree on w
Re:Another reason to reduce animal agriculture (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the beauty: you don't need to. Eliminate the Monsantos and corn subsidies of the world and monocropping disappears. You don't need "calculated entropy" to reduce the dangers we're putting ourselves in now. You remove the backwards thinking and suddenly people stop trying to producing the same damn thing. It's beyond ridiculous that local heirloom varieties are disused when you realize how much effort it takes to customize the right environment for the /wrong/ variety. Indigenous plants got us to the point of civilization. We never needed inbred lines, but we went down that path, and now we suffer.
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Eliminate the Monsantos and corn subsidies of the world and monocropping disappears.
That's a much taller order than what Feyshtey was suggesting, given public apathy. Which is sickening, but lets be honest: the only way monsanto and corn subsidies are going to be "eliminated" is if a catastrophe with monoculture actually happens, and people care enough to override monsanto and corn farmers' lobbying efforts.
In other words, the only way to prevent such problems before they occur on a wide scale is to do calculated entropy.
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Indigenous plants have not gotten us to this point in civilization. Domesticated crops which are the result of 5000 years of plant husbandry got us here.
For example maize and squash dominated the Eastern North America Agricultural complex 1000 years before Europeans arrived. Neither crop was indigenous.
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You are confusing 2 terms. Monoculture is not the same as monocropping. Monoculture is growing the same crop over a given area of land. Monocropping is doing that without rotating the crop year to year.
A single given plot of land can avoid both of these problems by planting several crops and rotating among your own land. In fact, big surprise, that's how subsistence farming used to work for a long time before corporate megafarming started planting the same crops (rotated or not) on vast expanses of land
Re:Another reason to reduce animal agriculture (Score:5, Funny)
I'm thinking a fiery Irish redhead attracted to the study of plant pathogens by a desire to see that a famine of the likes that claimed her ancestors is never repeated; along with a technocratic, but nerdy and mild-mannered, Japanese chemical engineer with a boundless confidence in our ability to outwit emerging pathogens. An apparently shallow and hard-partying Aussie vet(whose sensitive core can be shown during close-camera scenes of his delicate work to save adorable furry animals) rounds out the team's zoonotic expertise, along with a fatalistic epidemiologist(suggestions for an appropriate national stereotype welcome). Finally, there would be a 'native' around to provide the folksy wisdom of the traditional small farmers, from some country and backstory that makes this culturally-aware, rather than racist; and an American who started out studying agricultural chemistry under Borlaug; but left to serve with the Chemical Corps in Vietnam.
It wouldn't actually, y'known, solve any problems; but the made-for-TV spinoff would be a hit!
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It would solve the problem of what to do with all the European odd-balls (we're running a surplus).
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Yes, but he has to have a Mandelbrot Set on a t-shirt or on the back of his jacket.
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along with a fatalistic epidemiologist(suggestions for an appropriate national stereotype welcome).
Russian. Definitely Russian -- in certain sciences (and mathematics, too) it's become almost stereotypical, thanks to huge influx that occurred following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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Personally I think the true impact of such a series would be improved if they followed my complete mis-reading of the summary:
spread for hundreds of miles across Europe by biting midgeTs
Now THAT's a story I'd watch :-)
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It is - and in fact that's the *real* argument against GMOs, as well.
I'm skeptical about large-scale use of GMOs, but I'm so sick of people thinking they are going to somehow kill us all with their genetic cooties. The problem is spreading (accidentally or intentionally) these engineered genes throughout an entire species without understanding their long-term effects on said species itself. If human start dying from GMOs it's going to be from a massive famine after we have managed to kill off a couple of
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The subjective pro of "meat/cheese/etc. tastes good" is beginning to look weaker and weaker against the many cons.
No. Nope. Bacon, cheese, steak, pizza etc are still fucking delicious no matter what goes on before it's on my plate.
Now, when we get in vitro meat [wikipedia.org], maybe that will make this natural cheeseburger look hideous by comparison, but in the meantime... (nom nom nom nom)
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Uh, did you ever take a biology class, or did the man infiltrate those? Because I don't know if you've read/seen much NatGeo or Discovery, but this world is awesome as it is ready to kill you, and dying of awful disease born of unprocessed and unsterilized and improperly handled food was quite the common thing before the advent of sanitary processes. Dysentery isn't just something that makes your characters on Oregon Trail disappear.
Unless, of course, you are indirectly suggesting that the solution to this
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Isn't it obvious ? You are what you eat. Go raw! Plants, vegetables & fruit don't catch viruses. Unprocessed raw food is the Nature's Solution. The Cows eat it when they live in a natural environment, why couldn't we ?
They don't? What about plant viruses? [wikipedia.org] You're not suggesting a solution, you're suggesting we delay the problem by switching to an all plant diet. What happens when we face the same problems with plants, like what happened with the potato famine? Clearly we must both control consumption, eliminate waste, and control population growth through family planning. Making everyone vegetarians (or vegans as you seem to suggest) won't magically solve the problem, it will just delay the problem until we have an eve
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Or fruits?
Fruity vegetables?
You are what you eat, stop living off nuts.