[pecenipicek]

http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=4417

An unknown disease is hitting Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin and other areas, and if it's not actually a new disease, doctors think it must be mass hysteria. People are getting lesions on their bodies that are filled with strange, string-like fibers. The lesions start out as itchy bumps. Given the fact that leisons appear, as well as parasite-like fibers, it is hard to see how a diagnosis of hysteria can stand.

i'm giving this the benefit of a doubt until something more... verifiable says something about this.


your take people?

[Wild Fragaria]

Quick!  Hide in a bubble!

[Turambar]

$100 pat robertson says it's god punishing the gay ppl


pleeeeaase someone take me up on that, i could use the money

[aldo_14]

Current medical consensus seems to be that it's delusional parasitosis.

$100 pat robertson says it's god punishing the gay ppl


pleeeeaase someone take me up on that, i could use the money

Funnily enough, on the first page of a google search;

http://www.bibleprobe.com/morgellons.htm

"And I saw another sign in heaven, great and wonderful: seven angels having the seven last plagues. For in them is filled up the wrath of God." - Apocalypse 15:1

A mysterious skin disease is spreading across the country... It may be a coinfection of the already nasty Lyme disease.  Aids, Lyme disease, the bird flu, and now this.... Hmmmm!

Er.  hmm, indeed.  (nutters)

[Flipside]

I would hardly say any of those plagues are anything near 'Biblical Proportions'. Even AIDS, whilst having the potential to be exactly that deadly, is slowly being managed and controlled. The biggest problem is in the more disadvantaged areas, such as Africa. Bird Flu is a storm in a ****ing teacup, sorry, but it's like SARS, all buildup no impact, more people die of bubonic plague each year, come to think of it, more people die of simple influenza or malnutrition each year than SARS and Bird Flu combined has ever claimed.

Skin diseases are usually spread by contact, cities are terrible places for spreading contact diseases. It's hardly surprising that a new strain would start out in one area and move outwards, I suspect treatment is pretty basic, it's not fatal, I'd hardly call it anything more than an interesting study of transmission.

[karajorma]

Bird Flu is a storm in a ****ing teacup, sorry, but it's like SARS, all buildup no impact, more people die of bubonic plague each year, come to think of it, more people die of simple influenza or malnutrition each year than SARS and Bird Flu combined has ever claimed.

So the WHO should have let SARS spread a bit more so that people wouldn't whine about it not being that bad?

I wish people would get it into their heads that SARS didn't become a pandemic or at least a widespread disease like flu or colds due to the quarantine measures that were instituted in order to stop it. Not to mention the fact that it is only the second case of humanity dead-ending a disease.

As for bird flu being a storm in a teacup if you think 50 to 100 million dead from the last major outbreak is nothing I'd hate to be around for whatever you think is a real plague.

[Flipside]

I don't think SARS all that affected by the quarantine measures to be honest, I think it was blown way out of proportion in the first place.

As for the Bird Flu, indeed, as I said earlier influeza is a big killer (meant to put Lymes disease and SARS, not Bird Flu to be honest) but how much of these 'mystery strains' are, in reality, more along the lines of us getting better at being able to differentiate between different flu types? Unfortunately, since the last Pandemic was from a country that supplied precious little information about the situation, I'll assume you are right, and it is worse than I thought, but I personally don't think that the migration of Bird Flu is as much a danger as people believe. Yes, defences need to be put in place, the same as was done with SARS, but the whole attitude of hysteria that seems to be adopted towards these diseases is infuriating.

[IceFire]

SARS was pretty real...but here in the Toronto area we were ground zero for the stuff and the quarantine was severe.  My university campus/workplace is also a hospital and you couldn't get near the place.  It worked...but everyone was scared.  SARS wasn't as bad as it could have been...but it was definately caught and treated quickly.

I've heard about this mystery disease...it was on Slashdot.  It was pretty bizzare sounding but not any more serious than your average flu.

Its funny that the flu is just as dangerous as most other things out there but its relatively commonplace so most people ignore its impact.

[WeatherOp]

I don't think SARS all that affected by the quarantine measures to be honest, I think it was blown way out of proportion in the first place.

As for the Bird Flu, indeed, as I said earlier influeza is a big killer (meant to put Lymes disease and SARS, not Bird Flu to be honest) but how much of these 'mystery strains' are, in reality, more along the lines of us getting better at being able to differentiate between different flu types? Unfortunately, since the last Pandemic was from a country that supplied precious little information about the situation, I'll assume you are right, and it is worse than I thought, but I personally don't think that the migration of Bird Flu is as much a danger as people believe. Yes, defences need to be put in place, the same as was done with SARS, but the whole attitude of hysteria that seems to be adopted towards these diseases is infuriating.

SARS was kind of like the "West Nile Virus" that was suposed to be a major health threat for the Eastern US.

[karajorma]

It's the media that blows that sort of stuff out of proportion. The WHO acted wholly appropriately when confronted with a new disease with a 10% mortality rate, high transmisibility and (at the time) an unknown cause. Even with the cause known I'll still say that the attitude was correct. Had SARS not been dead-ended who's to say that it wouldn't have eventually mutated into something even more virulent?

There are lots of nasty diseases out there but I definitely feel that making sure that SARS will never bother us again is certainly a step in the right direction.


As for Bird Flu it's pretty much the same thing. The media create fear about the disease in order to grab peoples attention but it shouldn't ever be forgotten that this is a real danger. Bird Flu has a greater than 40% mortality rate and while it may not be human-human transmisible at the moment it shouldn't be forgotten that there is very little mutation needed for it to become so.

Migration of the flu is being blown out of proportion by the media but again it is a threat. The larger the pool of infected birds the greater the chance that the mutation will occur and infect someone.

[achtung]

http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=4417

An unknown disease is hitting Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin and other areas, and if it's not actually a new disease, doctors think it must be mass hysteria. People are getting lesions on their bodies that are filled with strange, string-like fibers. The lesions start out as itchy bumps. Given the fact that leisons appear, as well as parasite-like fibers, it is hard to see how a diagnosis of hysteria can stand.

i'm giving this the benefit of a doubt until something more... verifiable says something about this.


your take people?

Good job contributing to the mass hysteria!

[Turnsky]

well first SARS, then bird flu, and now this.

good ol' scaremongering.

[aldo_14]

It's the media that blows that sort of stuff out of proportion. The WHO acted wholly appropriately when confronted with a new disease with a 10% mortality rate, high transmisibility and (at the time) an unknown cause. Even with the cause known I'll still say that the attitude was correct. Had SARS not been dead-ended who's to say that it wouldn't have eventually mutated into something even more virulent?

There are lots of nasty diseases out there but I definitely feel that making sure that SARS will never bother us again is certainly a step in the right direction.


As for Bird Flu it's pretty much the same thing. The media create fear about the disease in order to grab peoples attention but it shouldn't ever be forgotten that this is a real danger. Bird Flu has a greater than 40% mortality rate and while it may not be human-human transmisible at the moment it shouldn't be forgotten that there is very little mutation needed for it to become so.

Migration of the flu is being blown out of proportion by the media but again it is a threat. The larger the pool of infected birds the greater the chance that the mutation will occur and infect someone.

Agreed entirely with by me*.  It's easy to call something an overreaction or scaremongering, especially when it's been addressed and prevented.

*Oh no, the grammar inquisition!  I never expected them!  Gwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaah

[Colonol Dekker]

Well i'd like to say Londons prepared for an outbreak/bioterrorist attack. We had a few exercises last year, But i'm not sure the services are ready, The British Army is no question, But the old bill and the rest of the 999 crew i dont know.....

[aldo_14]

Well i'd like to say Londons prepared for an outbreak/bioterrorist attack. We had a few exercises last year, But i'm not sure the services are ready, The British Army is no question, But the old bill and the rest of the 999 crew i dont know.....

Well, you'd never know; the only thing predictable about emergencies are that they are <<insert cliche>>.

[Colonol Dekker]

I'm currently working at London bridge (More London Place #1 to be exact) and now you mention it i can see Ken Livingstone wearing a gasmask and getting into a david blaine style bubble with a little helicopter rotor stuck to the top of it.... OH MY GOD! He just took off and is Flying away into the horizon while the mary poppins them tune playeout of nowhere!

Anyway, We coped with foot and mouth, fleshyproteinfibreosis as i will now call it shoul be quite easy, We all seen slither right?

[pecenipicek]

http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=4417

An unknown disease is hitting Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin and other areas, and if it's not actually a new disease, doctors think it must be mass hysteria. People are getting lesions on their bodies that are filled with strange, string-like fibers. The lesions start out as itchy bumps. Given the fact that leisons appear, as well as parasite-like fibers, it is hard to see how a diagnosis of hysteria can stand.

i'm giving this the benefit of a doubt until something more... verifiable says something about this.


your take people?

Good job contributing to the mass hysteria!

*failure to care imminent*


i think its just some stupid stuff as i didnt hear about from anywhere else, so... who the hell cares

[Turambar]

*does the "we're all gonna die" shuffle*

[an0n]

Wait a minute.

Bumps? Itching?

Boils? Lice?

Anyone seeing the connection here?

It might actually be a Biblical plague. Not sent by God, obviously. But a ressurgence of something old that just happened to get a mention in the Bible.

[Flipside]

Sounds to me like a legion-forming diease like lichens-planus or the like to be honest, though Lichens-planus itself isn't contagious, from the way it's being described it sounds like it's part of the same family of skin problems.