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‘Zombie deer disease’ epidemic spreads in Yellowstone as scientists raise fears it may jump to humans
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
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It's just a matter of time before it does jump the species barrier to humans. We know from other such cases how disease spreads from butchered animals to human beings, from bats or infected cattle. Many pathogens can exist for years outside the contaminated source, and even exist in our bodies for years before deciding to become active. Many of us carry viruses than will trigger years down the road, and we don't know it yet.
So it's just really a matter of time before this happens. One thing we're good at as a species is, finding ways to make ourselves sick.
No, it's not just "a matter of time". While there are loads of pathogens that jumped to humans they were originally incompatible with, there are.myriads more that didn't and likely never will. The jump to humans is not a given.
Prions are not a disease like bacteria or viruses. They’re abnormal protein chains that slowly cause a cascade of breakdowns in your brain. This had happened before. It’s not really something you have a defense against, but it easily jumps the typical species barrier. Our best defense is containment.
Moreover, there's no expectation that a prion disease like CWD can ever spread from person to (non-cannibal) person
So you are saying that the people infected with the zombie disease are all going to be cannibals? Somehow this doesn't sound like a good news.
Should be fine unless the protein in question is found in saliva -- Oh. Oh no
Given infinite time, infinite possibilities present.
Quite literally, it IS only a matter of time, unless you are really good at standing in the corner with a bag over your head saying "nuh uh. Things that I dont like and that I am afraid of will never happen," in which case it still is only a matter of time, you are just ignorant and argumentative.
Good thing there isn't infinite time. Fun fact, at any point in time, a finite amount of time will have passed
On a finite world, full of life competing everywhere all the time? It's still a matter of chance if it would happen in infinite time
Most diseases die out
By this logic because there is infinite time and infinite possibilities, we could develop a cure or a virus that kills this prion and avert this crisis. We could also not and just die. Then there is a possibility that none of this exists and this is a simulation and the developers haven't added this as a feature yet.
Earth v.AD2024.1.1 - Began "Zombie Deer Event" on North American Servers
Earth v.AD2024.1.2 - Fixed bug where "Zombie" status would not jump species
Earth v.AD2024.1.8 - Reduced "Zombie" status infliction rate as players intentionally ate tainted meat to spite developers
Yup. Precisely.
My main point is that, in general, it is better to prepare for the more problematic eventualities than to go "nuh uh, that isn't going to happen. Everything is going to be fine. Don't touch my cheese."
That is not the debated point. The point is that winning the lottery is just as much not a question of time.
I feel like you are missing the point.
People win the lottery every day.
There are far more CWD prions than lottery players, and it would only take one of those prions to mutate into a form that could infect humans.
Again, I will reiterate, putting on a blindfold, putting your fingers in your ears and going "it won't happen, lalala!" is a pretty dumb way to approach it.
We just saw the masses do it with Covid.
We had a novel disease, we just needed to behave for a couple months, the sweeping majority did, but the remainder of fuck-nuts out there went "it's not a problem, lalala!" and now we have endemic covid, sweeping segments of the population struggling with long covid, infection rates are going through the roof again, and now new even more severe consequences like epilepsy are showing up in children post infection.
2 of the rules of life. 1) Microorganisms will mutate. 2) People will be aggressively ignorant and will make sure the mutated microorganism will do as much damage as possible. Because they certainly cant miss that Blink 182 reunion tour...
Prions are not a disease like COVID or Staph. You don’t fight Prions. You contract prions and then you slowly and inevitably die from your brain being swiss cheesed because they’re abnormal protein chains that trigger breakdowns of other proteins. We dealt with this being directly in the food chain from the Mad Cow issue of the 90’s and as a species we made it through so readily that people are talking about this like it’s never happened before. We’re going to be okay.
Issue is we now have a decent population of people who will eat the tainted meat because "The government is lying" and trick others into eating it, saying, "See? You're fine, that was 'tainted', the government is lying to you"
This could legitimately cause damage because the fringe crazy is now much more populous
The nice part about prion diseases is that the only thing those people will achieve is killing themselves off, unless you decide to start eating their corpses
The only good thing about prions is that they don't mutate. CWD may extinctify deer, but it can't just jump to humans like bat-borne coronaviruses can
I hope not. You'd think humans would never want to eat a bat anyway - but apparently some have.