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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Chicken virus will make Covid-19 look like nothing.....

145 replies

Needamanicure · 30/05/2020 01:03

Dr Michael Greger, suggests "an apocalyptic virus that would make corona seem irrelevant"

Leading scientist warns of the danger of a pandemic triggered by chicken farms that could kill half the world's population - yes it is reported in the Daily Mail, The Sun and a few regional papers. This guy thinks we are headed for more animal spawned virus in the coming years so seat belt up and wait for it....

YABU - don't be stupid it won't happen for a long time - worry story

YANBU - the way humans farm animals it will happen sooner than you think

OP posts:
Mummyoflittledragon · 30/05/2020 04:01

You’ve been around long enough to know to provide a source op. Not sure about this tbh.

NotTheOnlyPomInTheVillage · 30/05/2020 04:20

There are so many plant-based alternatives to meat, there really is no need to eat animals anymore.

Ursula2001 · 30/05/2020 04:31

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NotTheOnlyPomInTheVillage · 30/05/2020 04:33

There seem to be some suggestions online that he's a vegan with an agenda.

Maybe he became vegan due to what he concluded from his research?

Ursula2001 · 30/05/2020 04:38

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Muh2020 · 30/05/2020 05:04

Yep - only a matter of time.

How we treat animals in factory farms is obscene and a disgrace.

LovingLen · 30/05/2020 05:10

I saw this in the Daily Mail and thought, I bet someone plucks this out and put it on MN. Usual DM story, of course anything can happen sometime.

Khadernawazkhan · 30/05/2020 05:39

@Needamanicure Completely and utterly agree with what you see about fearful and frankly ridiculous people.

We need to be brave, stand up and get this country moving again. The pathetic behaviours you describe have got to stop. Its killing the futures of millions.

Squirrellamp · 30/05/2020 05:53

It’s not untrue.
The facts are that loads of diseases originate in other animals and most of these diseases have a much much higher mortality rate than Covid-19.
Smallpox, tuberculosis, HIV, rabies, Ebola.

IncrediblySadToo · 30/05/2020 06:09

[quote Khadernawazkhan]@Needamanicure Completely and utterly agree with what you see about fearful and frankly ridiculous people.

We need to be brave, stand up and get this country moving again. The pathetic behaviours you describe have got to stop. Its killing the futures of millions.[/quote]
Can you explain how 'being brave' is going to stop people dying from it?

If only 60,000 in the U.K. had been brave, they'd still be alive?

NoHardSell · 30/05/2020 06:16

This certainly isn't a particularly exciting pandemic compared to those that are forecast.
No bad thing, seeing as the UK response has been pitiful
We might do better next time round, which would be handy if it's something more deadly

SoloMummy · 30/05/2020 06:23

@Needamanicure

Dr Michael Greger, suggests "an apocalyptic virus that would make corona seem irrelevant"

Leading scientist warns of the danger of a pandemic triggered by chicken farms that could kill half the world's population - yes it is reported in the Daily Mail, The Sun and a few regional papers. This guy thinks we are headed for more animal spawned virus in the coming years so seat belt up and wait for it....

YABU - don't be stupid it won't happen for a long time - worry story

YANBU - the way humans farm animals it will happen sooner than you think

He's a vegan philosophist. Given that's his focus, I'm not convinced he's really qualified to make apocalyptic predictions about pandemics.
SpillTheTeaa · 30/05/2020 06:32

I told you it was in various 'newspapers' don't be so lazy and go google

Omg you're so bloody rude. When you do threads like this you link the article! You know so people can read the same information as you. You little chicken 💩

MonsteraCheeseplant · 30/05/2020 06:36

How about we stop fear mongering?

duffeldaisy · 30/05/2020 07:07

I wouldn't trust a word that came from those sources. They're the grimmest tabloids looking for a lurid scare story.

Saying that, I do think there should be a real look into farming practices worldwide, and a ban on intensive farming. It's extraordinarily cruel - which should be enough of a reason, but it also sensible to do it to reduce the chance of another virus forming in the future.

If everyone only bought free-range eggs/chicken in this country, then the intensive chicken farms would die out. I appreciate that they're more expensive than caged eggs, and there are far too many people who can't afford basic food supplies at the moment, but perhaps with enough pushing from consumers, then it'd change. Once upon a time gluten-free products or vegan products were hard to come by, but with enough people demanding them, they're much more common, and now supermarkets with as limited ranges as Lidl and Aldi have their sections and even their own brand plant milks. So shoppers can make a difference eventually, in a small way.

AriadnesFilament · 30/05/2020 07:10

I’m going to guess he’s a vegan, I,e. has an agenda.

And your responses are pretty rude OP.

Moondust001 · 30/05/2020 07:12

I get all my science from the Mail, the Sun, and a few regional newspapers. They never sensationalise a word of the truth in order to promote their "newspapers". I also get all my political opinions from them. That's why I'm an idiot.

Kittenlicker · 30/05/2020 07:12

If it’s in the a Daily Mail then it must be true...Hmm

FlyingFlamingo · 30/05/2020 07:20

Hasn’t Covid19 been so ‘successful’ precisely because it has a fairly low mortality rate compared to other diseases such as SARS? The faster you develop serious symptoms and die the less likely you are to spread it around significantly. You can’t go into a supermarket and cough on everything if you’re dead! With Covid19 some people have no symptoms at all, that’s how it has spread so successfully. Whilst I agree that agricultural practices need to be looked at (especially with Brexit looming and the U.K. prepared to accept whatever deal the US are offering where massive farms are the norm) I think you need to get some perspective.

scaevola · 30/05/2020 07:21

The risk of pandemic disease has been high on national risk registers for decades.

Epidemiologists have been saying for years that we are 'overdue' a nasty one - be that flu, another SARS-type or another new zoonosis.

Bird farms in favourable climate conditions, where people and their flock live on top of each other is dehpfinitoey a place where this could happen (haven't at least two strains of flu emerged from southern Chinese chicken farms?)

So my take in this sotory is that it's a report stating the bloody obvious. Because there's a lot of consideration of this kind of thing going in by the experts all the time. It only becomes 'news' when a generalist journalist hears of it for the first time and writes it up in an eye catching way.

zscaler · 30/05/2020 07:22

It’s not completely implausible.

Avian flu has a significantly higher mortality rate than CV-19 - 60% of those who get it die from it. Luckily, it does not transmit easily from human to human, which is why it isn’t such a threat at the present time. But if it were to mutate to become more easily transmissible, it would be very serious indeed.

That’s a big if, of course. But the way we intensively farm animals and the possibility of transmission between species means that viruses like this are a part of our global landscape. Any particularly virulent flu strain could do untold damage.

We can all do our bit - reducing meat consumption, calling for higher welfare standards for farmed animals, campaigning for trade pressures and / or government sanctions on countries with poor welfare standards, getting out flu jabs.

AlternativePerspective · 30/05/2020 07:30

don't be so lazy and go google the said 'newspapers' yourself for that post alone YABU and are clearly just posting here to whip up a frenzy.

Have reported this thread

itsgettingweird · 30/05/2020 07:37

It's possible.

Dinosaurs once roamed the earth. They eventually became extinct Wink

I'm still shocked at the number of people I see on FB writing things like 'stop worrying everyone. Flu season is over and Covid is just a MILD flu'

Maybe they should tell that to the families of the 38k+ people at by have died.

We, as a race, do need to step back and take a look at our practices.

wherestheotherone · 30/05/2020 07:37

It's a case of when not if but its the way the disease spreads that's the risk of pandemic.

Covid wasn't contained by China because the fatality rate wasn't alarming enough to make them listen to what was happening.

We need to impose strict global rules on countries were a new virus appears to reduce movement from that country.

Ebola, Sars, Mets, Swine flu, Bird flu all have higher mortality rates but they were contained because they aren't asymptotic, death rate is higher so people are more cautious and strick isolation on anyone who has it.

A deadly pandemic that is a threat to human existence is possible and likely.

itsgettingweird · 30/05/2020 07:38

It yes to it being from someone who seems to be an activist too.