Re: Cold, hard facts defy the doomsayers

Al Zenner wrote:

H5N1 might make a significant difference in the future of the earth.
If we beat that then there's another even worse one just around the
corner.

All the scare about H5N1 bird flu doesn't seem rational to me. Why? It's only been 50-60 years since people in the US became so urbanized that children have to be taken to zoos to visit farm animals. I know I grew up playing in a chicken yard, and most of my peers had at least one rural parent or grandparent. At about age 9, I had some mysterious illness-- something like a cross between regular flu and the mumps in symptoms. Doctor had no clue what it was--I was in bed for two weeks, dizzy with a fever, sore throat, and swollen neck glands. After two weeks , I got better. Still don't know what it was, but got it a day or two after a visit to grandma's. Most people in the US midwest test positive for histoplasmosis--another bird and bat guano borne disease which can be really nasty if you have a weak immune system, but can also be quite mild-- it is an occupational hazard of cavers who frequent dry bat colony caves. In short: people have been living around birds from the beginning, even in close quarters, (ever had a parakeet or canary?) and undoubtably there are bird-borne diseases which are not fun, but in the big scheme, if humans as a species was totally vulnerable to those diseases, we wouldn't be here.

If people want to worry about something, fine, and it's good that public health people are tracking it, but I bet you there are H5N1 resistant humans out there. There is a middle ground between living in squalor, and having to have antibacterial soap for everything...I feel sorry for those poor kids whose moms are so worried about protecting them from germs that they never develop resistance to anything.



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