If you go down to the woods today

[ex-member BareThrills]

Spot of plague over in the states

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23460709

interesting that a disease which killed so many back then s now easily controlled with antibiotics

 

[huntergathereralex]

I think if you go on the UK's version of the CDC, you might be surprised just what nasty bugs exist in the British Isles. That being said, with regards to squirrels, my brother sent me a newspaper clipping from Chicago of squirrels attacking people in a local park. You see, crack dealers were stashing their drugs in bushes in this park when the cops came around, and the squirrels were eating the crack, and going nuts! When they were coming down, their withdrawl from not finding more crack right away, caused them to attack people in the park! Not making this up! Only in America.
Sorry to hijack this thread...we now return to our regular scheduled post on the plague.
Cheers
(where's my crack? where's my crack? where's my crack?...)Alex the squirrel

 

[woof]

So, plague squirrels high on crack....

Rob

 

[Bowlander]

Thankfully it wasn't Krokodil - then there'd be zombie crazed plague squirrels! Shame the squirrel's can't sniff out the dealers and attack them!

 

[petrochemicals]

Its not just plague thats easily beaten by anti biotics, before 1940 many diseases where childhood killers, now they're not and we live unaware how precarious the position was. Anti biotics are failing which is very worrying because of resistance. I'd say the article is a little bit off with its numbers (become a journalist and wikipedia everything). Bubonic plague must have killed 25 million in Britian over the last 1000 years, the plague of 1665 must have killed 25 million in europe, the ebola esq black death killed over half of europes population! Dirty rat dastbards.

 

[Goatboy]

The plague can be remarkably long lived though, a friend who used to work in old cemeteries had to decontaminate after doing stuff around old plague graves are they were worried that it could persist in the soil.

 

[huntergathereralex]

The plague can be remarkably long lived though, a friend who used to work in old cemeteries had to decontaminate after doing stuff around old plague graves are they were worried that it could persist in the soil.

That is something to ponder. Do you know how old those plague graves were you friend worked around?
Alex

 

[crosslandkelly]

I would guess that the latest plague graves would not be much later than 1667. I don't think we've had an outbreak since.

 

[Goatboy]

I would guess that the latest plague graves would not be much later than 1667. I don't think we've had an outbreak since.

Date's would be about right there Huntergathereralex and Crosslandkelly. Though some grave pits and yards were moved and built upon later (LINK) supposedly adding to the fear of viability. As I say I think the decontamination was more of a precaution than anything else.

Will find out more when I see her again.

 

[wingstoo]

When they exhumed bodies of the 1918/19 Spanish flu pandemic there was concern that it might still be viable because they were bodies buried in permafrost, so the virus could still have been suspended until thawing took place. So all these nasty little bugs are still out there waiting for humanity to screw up.

 

[petrochemicals]

daniel defoe - diary of a plague year !

 

[Goatboy]

When they exhumed bodies of the 1918/19 Spanish flu pandemic there was concern that it might still be viable because they were bodies buried in permafrost, so the virus could still have been suspended until thawing took place. So all these nasty little bugs are still out there waiting for humanity to screw up.

It's also an excuse to hold deadly bacteria, viruses and fungi in labs "in case" we need to combat them... not to weaponise oh no.

 

[petrochemicals]

It's also an excuse to hold deadly bacteria, viruses and fungi in labs "in case" we need to combat them... not to weaponise oh no.

yup, commies everywhere.

Edt:

4 cases in california since 1984, the ultimate "get the day of work" reason.

 

[abominable_scouse_monster]

It's also an excuse to hold deadly bacteria, viruses and fungi in labs "in case" we need to combat them... not to weaponise oh no.

Oddly enough because they can be weaponised is considerd a good reason to store samples.

 

[wingstoo]

Oddly enough because they can be weaponised is considerd a good reason to store samples.

So anti-dotes can be made, without them we would be wide open to foreign powers who might be willing to use them.

 

[abominable_scouse_monster]

So anti-dotes can be made, without them we would be wide open to foreign powers who might be willing to use them.

From what I understand yes, thye keep samples of some of the most vicious bactria and viral samples on ice or in culture to make vaccines and other treatments because they can be weaponsied. Part of that process involves breading new strains (weaponiseation) but in the UK and the rest of the EU I am lead to understand that the sample bodys is so small an varied that to make a Bio-Weapon from the samples would take a exceptionally long time and samples are more secure than any other material during intra lab transfer.

 

[wingstoo]

M.A.D. at it's finest

 

[Goatboy]

Oddly enough because they can be weaponised is considerd a good reason to store samples.

Aye but I can't help but feel it's one of these "Catch 22" excuses.

 

[Goatboy]

Did you know that apart from a single case of plague contracted in a laboratory at Porton in 1962 the last English outbreak of plague occurred in Suffolk …. The last person to die was 42 year old Mrs. Garrod who died on 19th June 1918. She lived at Warren Lane Cottages, Erwarton. Between 1906 and 1918 a total of 22 people died of plague in Suffolk.

Of course in 1918 the Spanishflu pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus (the second being the 2009 flu pandemic). It infected 500 million people across the world, including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and killed 50 to 100 million of them—3 to 5 per cent of the world's population at the time—making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. To maintain morale, wartime censors minimized early reports of illness and mortality in Germany, Britain, France, and the United States; but papers were free to report the epidemic's effects in neutral Spain (such as the grave illness of King Alfonso XIII), creating a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit— thus the pandemic's nickname Spanish flu.

 

[crosslandkelly]

Wow, good stuff. I knew about the Spanish flu outbreak, but not the Suffolk plague.