04-24-2006, 04:04 PM
I saw this article a few places and thought I'd pass it along.
Basically it's saying that our scientists have confirmed what
scientists in Europe had already found: pigeons are naturally very
resistant to the Asian strain of H5N1 (the bird flu that's got all the
immunologists so worried).
From the article:
". . . Pigeons are not immune from the virus. But tests indicate the
birds pick it up only when they are exposed to very high doses, do not
always become infected under those conditions and are carriers only
briefly.
"'Pigeons aren't a big worry,' said Rex Sohn, a wildlife disease
specialist at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health
Center in Madison, Wis. 'But to make absolute predictions that pigeons
won't be susceptible to this virus, in whatever form it arises in
North America, is not something you want to say.'
". . .In one experiment, researchers squirted into pigeons' mouths
liquid drops that contained the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus from a
Hong Kong sample. The birds got about 100 to 1,000 times the
concentration that wild birds would encounter in nature. 'We couldn't
infect the pigeons,' Swayne said. 'So that's good news.'"
You can see the entire story here: <[url "http://tinyurl.com/ltsaq"]http://tinyurl.com/ltsaq[/url]>
[center]But what about them dam seagulls?[/center] [center] [/center] [center]I suspose I will have to get an umbrella for my beer [sly][/center]
[signature]
Basically it's saying that our scientists have confirmed what
scientists in Europe had already found: pigeons are naturally very
resistant to the Asian strain of H5N1 (the bird flu that's got all the
immunologists so worried).
From the article:
". . . Pigeons are not immune from the virus. But tests indicate the
birds pick it up only when they are exposed to very high doses, do not
always become infected under those conditions and are carriers only
briefly.
"'Pigeons aren't a big worry,' said Rex Sohn, a wildlife disease
specialist at the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health
Center in Madison, Wis. 'But to make absolute predictions that pigeons
won't be susceptible to this virus, in whatever form it arises in
North America, is not something you want to say.'
". . .In one experiment, researchers squirted into pigeons' mouths
liquid drops that contained the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus from a
Hong Kong sample. The birds got about 100 to 1,000 times the
concentration that wild birds would encounter in nature. 'We couldn't
infect the pigeons,' Swayne said. 'So that's good news.'"
You can see the entire story here: <[url "http://tinyurl.com/ltsaq"]http://tinyurl.com/ltsaq[/url]>
[center]But what about them dam seagulls?[/center] [center] [/center] [center]I suspose I will have to get an umbrella for my beer [sly][/center]
[signature]