Speaking of pandemics, check out the latest official pronouncement about
our cultural heritage at risk, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10340881
Peter Lundskow
Indiana State Museum
-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Marielle Fortier
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 9:01 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] a rational digression? CSI=MSI
Mark, At my museum we often joke about being MSI (Museum scene
investigators!) Also did you catch that meteor that fell over
Australia,
not to mention that earthquake in the Congo!
Marielle
**********************
Marielle Fortier
Museum Registrar
Norwich University Museum
Northfield, Vermont
**********************
>From: Mark Janzen <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Museum discussion list <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: The most serious health threat facing the planet says
>W.H.O. -
>a rational digression?
>Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 16:37:35 -0600
>
>Roger et al.,
>
>Thanks. Looks like a well constructed site, and useful. Kudos on your
>involvement.
>
>However, since I do not have an alarmist bone in my body(and it is
>Monday), I feel the need to express my personal reasoned opinion on the
>issue, which I have been hearing far too much about. No one in
>particular is the object of this particular angst. I believe we should
>be far more concerned with the looming "plandemic" (a word taken from
>one of the site's interesting articles that I wish I had coined)
>associated with this phenomenon, than with the potential of the
>pandemic itself. A plandemic is a serious, though normally non-fatal
>affliction contracted quite easily by a wide array of institutions in
>any media obsessed culture. Plandemics are however enormously wasteful
>of time and resources better spent on something substantive. Y2K
>springs to mind.
>
>Essentially in this case: bad science + errant immunology assumptions +
>alarmist media + government support = bird flu plandemic
>
>Although it is possible for some variety of this flu to become commonly
>transferrable to humans and subsequently transmissible between us,
>there is no certainty that it ever will. Much like the possibility that
>an airborne version of HIV will develop over time. There are thousands
>of animal diseases that do not cross over species lines to which we are
>exposed daily, any one of which might have the same effects. Currently
>you can only get the "bird flu" from infected birds(and perhaps through
>mosquitoes), and even then the odds are astronomical, since it is not a
>virus that normally effects humans at all. Even if you catch it, it
>still can not be transmitted from person to person, and it is nowhere
>near 100% fatal. At this point it is hardly an earthshaking problem,
>and no amount of planning on my institution's part is going to do a
>darned thing to change whether it becomes a bigger one. It also seems
>odd to me that they are cranking out vaccinations for a virus that does
>not yet exist, i.e. a virus that can be transmitted from person to
>person. Perhaps a vaccination against the one that occasional people
>get directly from birds will be helpful?
>
>My university does have plans for tornadoes, terrorist attack, fires,
>nuclear war, floods, and even earthquakes(in Kansas). There are
>medication distribution plans and centers should something sweep across
>the nation. Hopefully they will not go further off the deep end and
>develop a new plan for every potential yet unrealized threat that crops
>up in the future. Besides, are we done planning for HIV, tuberculosis,
>heart disease, cancer, and all the other problems that we already have,
>without adding ones that do not yet exist and may never come to pass?
>Hundreds of thousands die every year from those already pandemic
>diseases.
>
>All that said, it is still technically possible that the bird flu
>pandemic will occur someday. Actually, on a less cheerful note, it is a
>certainty something like it will occur eventually, since the earth is
>going to get really tired of the skin disease that is us. I am glad the
>CDC and the WHO(not the band) are there to shield us from the plaent's
>righteous revenge. I personally prefer to waste my fears on random
>lightning strikes, dinosaur-killing meteors, and machete-wielding
>sociopaths. I promise not to complain if I am one of the ones it
>strikes down. The plandemic I mean.
>
>Please note that the usual caveats of my not being a professional
>alarmist, viral epidemiologist, or vital statistics analyzer apply,
>although I would be happy to play one on tv. A spot on CSI Las Vegas
>would rock!
>
>Have a great day all.
>
>Mark Janzen
>Registrar/Collections Manager
>Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art
>Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture Collection
>Wichita State University
>(316)978-5850
>
>
>
> Roger Smith
> <[log in to unmask]
> CO.NZ>
To
> Sent by: Museum [log in to unmask]
> discussion list
cc
> <[log in to unmask]
> SE.LSOFT.COM>
Subject
> A thought for the list - The
most
> serious health threat facing
the
> 12/04/2005 11:04 planet says W.H.O.
> PM
>
>
> Please respond to
> Museum discussion
> list
> <[log in to unmask]
> SE.LSOFT.COM>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Greeting to list members,
>
>CBS yesterday is quoted as saying " Fewer than 100 people have died
>worldwide, yet the World Health Organization calls the Avian Flu' the
>most
>
>serious health threat facing the planet, greater than AIDS or
>tuberculosis"
>
>While not wishing to spread either panic nor despondency amongst the
>list, it seemed timely to remind people that I recently published
>another "public
>
>good" web site - Global Pandemic News - which can be viewed at
>http://www.pandemic-news.info
>
>Our university ( my day job! ) is reasonably well advanced it its
>plans to
>
>combat such an pandemic and other list members may also be formulating
>plans?
>
>I built the above site to bring live news feeds 24X7 to anyone with an
>interest in this topic. This is just a timely reminder of the web
>address and its existence. You may want to share it with friends?
>
>Best wishes to all
>
>Roger
>Global Museum
>
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