Global warming-Ebola-AIDS. Is it earth's way of saying "F*** you man!"????

[devilgrrl]

Sometimes I wonder...

I'm no scientist, nor can I prove it but I think diseases like ebola and aids are direct results of deforestation. Like I said, I can't prove it and there's a good chance that I'm way off track but until proven otherwise, I sticking with it.

[Systematic Chaos]

1. No, actually it's MAN'S way of saying "F*** you man!"

Seeing as all three are almost certainly man-made. :shrug:

[RevolutionaryActs]

3. Such a lovely world we live huh?

[Dookus]

4. HIV and ebola

are "almost certainly man-made"? I don't think there's a lot of evidence to support that. The mad rantings of some conspiracy-minded folk isn't exactly evidence.

[Zuni]

6. You have it right Dookus

I had to do a report on AIDS for a microbiology class I took once and ended up finding a lot of things about the virus and it's history.
HIV has existed AT LEAST since the late 1950s, has been in Europe since at least 1964 (a sailor who died in the early 1970s was found to have carried it to Europe) and in the US since 1968 (a male prostitute in St Louis died of mysterious disease in 1968 and a doctor saved his tissue for reasearch. Scientists working later found he had AIDS)
Japanese scientists confirmed HIV was in the blood of an African man who died in Congo in 1959.
That means this disease has been around long before science even recognized retroviruses.
Scientists are almost positive that the human HIV virus is a mutation of a virus that infects primates, SIV. When and how it became HIV is still under investigation.

[Zuni]

5. Ebola and AIDS were NOT man made

and the fact that you would suggest this shows that you have very limited understanding of plagues and disease.
Scientific reasearchers have traced AIDS to a the SIV virus that infects a particular species of Chimpanzee. Somewhere along the line, the fast mutating SIV becamew the fast mutating HIV virus.
It is beyond doubt that HIV existed at least by the late 1950s because of tissue and blood samples taken at the time in the Congo. Scientists did not even know for sure that retroviruses like HIV actually existed at the time.
Ebola has been around at least since the 1970s and is also an example of zoonotic transfer (the transfer of viruses between species). Zoonotic transfer can account for more than 95% of viruses that infect man.

[Dookus]

2. well you're not far off from

some theories. It may not be deforestation per se that exposed us to Ebola and HIV, but man's incursion into previously-remote territories are probably how we encountered these viruses. They've probably been around for a long time in primate populations, and as populations extended into new areas, cross-transmission probably occured.

I don't think it's the Earth's way of saying "fuck you", though. I don't ascribe motives to the Earth.

On edit: The other major factor is mobility. As pointed out above, there's a case of blood gathered in 1959 having HIV. It was the greatly increased mobility of the population that allows such diseases to spread far and wide. We've been fortunate so far with Ebola, but it's probably just a matter of time until a large outbreak occurs.

[DrWeird]

7. f.y.i...

Ebola and AIDS are caused by viruses. Scientists have discounted the notion that diseases are the caused by moral failings for several years now.

[Orsino]

8. Result of globalization.

With our modern mobility, we can spread far and wide the diseases that would have remained mostly hidden away in wilderness. Similarly, global warming stems from man's grasp exceeding his reach. We're able to hose completely elements of our environment which we don't fully understand.