Joking aside, the idea of animal-to-human disease transmission is kind of terrifying. The most famous cases are probably mad cow disease (from eating the brain or spinal cord of infected cattle) and avian flu (from direct contact with infected birds or their droppings). Since I don't eat beef and am not a poultry farmer, I felt relatively safe from those particular outbreaks. However, according to the Centers for Disease Control website, there have been documented cases of swine flu passing between humans. That's part of the reason the World Health Organization has declared this swine flu outbreak in North America to be 'a public health emergency of international concern.' In other words, "Don't freak out or anything, but this could become a pandemic."
So what's a girl to do - hole up in a bunker to wait out the
The good news is that standard antivirals work well against this disease. While the common flu virus is resistant to such medications, this strain is actually a "triple assortment" - a recombinant virus containing DNA from avian, swine and human influenza. Science fact is always stranger that science fiction. Still, I'm on board with President Obama - we shouldn't panic. But hopefully, once the dust settles, we can take a look at why over 100 people in Mexico died from the flu.
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P.S. I'm just kidding about the contaminated meat - you can't get swine flu from eating pork. Also, the title of this post is from the song Think About It by Flight of the Conchords:
"There's people on the street getting diseases from monkeys.
Yeah, that's what I said - they're getting diseases from monkeys.
Now there's junkies with monkey disease...
Who's touching these monkeys? Please,
Leave these poor sick monkeys alone -
They've got problems enough as it is!"
2 comments:
Oh man... whose fault is swine flu? The immigrants, of course!!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/28/swine-flu-conservatives-b_n_192212.html
Featuring my favorite tongue-in-cheek comment:
The Mezzicans are taking over the WORLD, I tell you! THE WORLD! Soon you'll have to push 2 for English and all sandwiches will be replaced with tacos and the only lousy cheap beer will be Corona and the United States will turn into Venezuela. The end.
Why am I not surprised? Terribly disappointed at the meanness of the human spirit, but not surprised.
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