Just thought I should bring people’s attention to this. CNN is interviewing Malik Peiris at 1930 EST. Details here Showtimes for other cities and repeat times on the sidebar from the link.
I would highly recommend watching as we might find out what his assessment of the current situation is.
“Malik Peiris, a leading expert on SARS and bird flu, was recently inducted as a fellow of Britain’s Royal Society, the world’s most prestigious science academy. Peiris was a leading member of the team that helped identify the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus, which infected thousands of people around the world in 2003. A native of Sri Lanka and a professor at Hong Kong University, Peiris shares his views with Talk Asia on the latest bird flu concerns and what it’s like to join other eminent scientists, including Stephen Hawking and Sir Isaac Newton, in Britain’s Royal Society.”
anon_22- would that be central time zone?
anon_22,
Is that CNN domestic or international?
Did you look at the link?
the times are shown on the sidebar.
I guess there must also be a schedule somewhere on the website for you to check.
I’m in the middle of something right now, sorry.
It’s CNN International, which my cable system doesn’t carry.
Looks like CNN Int’l, but I can’t find any listings for North America that show the Asia Now segments…
Sorry…”Talk Asia” segment…
Talk Asia
Whoever can watch this, please share what is said. My local cable provider offers CNN, but Talk Asia doesn’t show up anywhere in the listings.
Just watched the first segment. a couple of interesting things: all the pandemics of the 20th century came from either avian virus or human virus acquiring avian genes. Therefore, avian viruses are the source of pandemics.
anon_22,
Barry covered that.
I’m just trying to tell it the way he is telling it, with the implication or message being don’t think bird flu is just bird problem.
pandemic ‘extremely likely’ within the next 10 years.
at this point in the, H5N1 seems to be the most ‘concerning’ as a candidate for a pandemic
the virus so far has not ‘adapted’ to human to human transmission
but if given enough time, sooner or later, it might make the change, and then we will be faced with a major public health problem
b2h transmission is by close contact with infected poultry, sometimes the poultry make not appear sick, as in ducks,
and in some cases, eating poultry products which have not been adequately cooked
for the poor countries in Asia, ‘there is no question that this is a huge challenge. the infection of poultry in backyard flocks is much more difficult to control than in big industrialized organizations.
when it is spread across thousands of villages, it becomes extremely difficult to detect it and control it. You can;t do any biosecurity measures, and even delivery vaccines is a major challenge.
when it is spread across thousands of villages, it becomes extremely difficult to detect it and control it. You can;t do any biosecurity measures, and even delivery vaccines is a major challenge.
human vaccines - some early clinical trials disappointing in terms of efficacy and amount of vaccine required. Very recently there has been 1 report from a company that says they got very good results (meaning GSK). IF those results look as promising as they say it is, then that is very comforting.
on ‘are we prepared?’
No country still is fully prepared to confront a influenza pandemic, and certainly not a pandemic arising from a virus like H5N1.
But we are better prepared than 6 months ago.
OK, that’s it for the avian flu section. The rest was on SARS and his personal experiences, which I won’t transcribe at this point.
Anon_22 - thanks!
yes! thank you very much!
Thanks from up here in Canada!
pandemic ‘extremely likely’ within the next 10 years.
how can he say that ? Others give it maybe 50% such as Webster.
Extremely likely sounds like 99% or more.
I don’t think he really means that. Has he some secret information,
what others don’t know ?
anonymous – at 21:03 --- As far as I’m concerned, anything with a better than 50% chance is “extremeley likely” in my book.
I don’t think he really means that.
Perhaps you should write and ask him directly.
And give yourself a name.
Thanks, Anon_22, for that transcription. You really burned up the keyboard there….
Oops above.
Thanks Anon_22 - interesting information and much appreciated!
Didn’t M. Peiris previously give “not worried” opinions about H5N1: “it may not be able to transmit to humans”. Now it is the most concerning candidate. “Extrememly likely to have a pandemic within 10 years” may mean it’s been strange to not have had one already and to go another 10 years, of ‘almost about to happen’, would be very WEIRD.
Thanks to anon_22 for the real-time transcription service.
Thanks Anon_22.
I just looked at the CNN site, and they have transcripts of previous interviews. I dont know how long it will take to post this one however.
Many thanks from the UK Anon_22.
NJ,
I don’t know when the previous quote from Peiris was taken, certainly this time you can see he was picking his words very carefully, and IMO the phrase ‘extremely likely’ is significant, certainly more so than ‘next 10 years’.
The reason why I say that, among many things, is that he has always come across as a prudent person, and the word ‘extremely’ is certainly not one that a prudent Asian person would use on public media as part of a planned interview. He must have known this question would be the most significant and most watched one of the whole interview.
The other statement which interests me is the one about h2h:
Notice he didn’t get into whether H5N1 has been able to go h2h, or efficient h2h, but chose the phrase ‘has not adapted to h2h’.
He is smart enough to stay away from those controversies around h2h, such as what counts as ‘efficient’ etc, since the word ‘efficient’ mirrors the WHO stages. The use of that word would have sparked off a whole load of controversies around what stage we should be in.
Third thing to point out: the fact that he emphasized how H5N1 is especially ‘concerning’. He repeated that when he was talking about whether we are prepared: that the world is not prepared, ‘certainly not for one caused by a virus like H5N1’.
We should take his warnings to heart, IMHO.
OK, important correction to my post at 08:50
It should read “is certainly not one that a prudent Asian person would use on public media as part of a planned interview without good reason.”
Doh!
bump
Anon_22 at 08:55 “Notice he didn’t get into whether H5N1 has been able to go h2h, or efficient h2h, but chose the phrase ‘has not adapted to h2h’”
I read your reports a while ago then went off to wash the dishes. Then it dawned on me the importance of the statement ‘has not adapted to h2h’. He did NOT say that he thought it never could/would adapt to go H2H, but rather ‘has not adapted’, and that its ‘concerning’. In my opinion, and of course reading between the lines, he seems not to think there is a biological barrier to its doing just that.
Yes, he did choose his subtle, sobering words carefully.
Mosaic,
Yes, that is also how I interpret his words.
Mosaic,
also read my post at 20:03
A-22, Maybe you could tanscribe from moeb’s basement.
Anon_22 at 20:03 “but if given enough time, sooner or later, it might make the change, and then we will be faced with a major public health problem”
I had read that last night, but the real significance had eluded me. Thanks.
I checked earlier this morning, and the transcript at CNN was not yet available. I am assuming there will be one. We just get generic CNN here.
MrWhite 42 – at 15:53 “A-22, Maybe you could tanscribe from moeb’s basement.”
Your meaning eludes me, I’m afraid. :-)
Just as well then…no harm intended.;-)
anon_22 – at 20:00
pandemic ‘extremely likely’ within the next 10 years. [Peiris]
can someone else please confirm this ? I can’t find it elsewhere that
Peiris should have said this. He didn’t say it before.
Maybe anon_22 mis-heard something. If he really believes this, he should
say it on his webpage too and to the public, not only just in a
CNN-web-interview which is nowhere quoted to public. (using search-engine)
I didn’t mis-hear it. I recorded it and went over the recording a few times to make sure that was exactly what he said.
Can we trust you ? Why doesn’t he say it elsewhere ? Freely available and searchable ? Does he really mean, what he said ? Then he _should_ not hide it and stand to it and discuss about it with other experts. Remember Webster’s interview from March and then he switched to a “no one knows” - strategy later without repeating his statement.
Look, this is a internet forum. You don’t know me, I don’t know you. Therefore, the answer is no, you cannot trust me, you shouldn’t trust me. In fact, you shouldn’t trust anything you read here.
If you want to find out what Malik or Webster or whoever thinks, go and get first hand information. Go and ask them.
Everyone else can ignore the above post.
Let me say this one more time, anon_22, thank you for transcribing this segment for those of us who could not tune it in ourselves (and therefore asked the favor). I’d hope that CNN will post the transcript, but you did a fine job of giving us the gist of the unfolding interview on the fly, and those of us who want more specifics or verification should request the transcript from CNN in lieu of grilling you distrustfully.
InKy, thank you.
22, I sent mail to Peiris, but it’s Sunday and he has probably many emails and few time. I do know you a bit and trut you in principle, but scientists want reproducable statements. What shall I say to friends in email or on the phone ? Anon_22 said it at fluwiki, but I have no link ? That’s not very convincing.
anonymous,
Did you read this whole thread? This was a CNN interview broadcast all over the world. So if you want a link, then the CNN link will give you the location of the program. It looks like they might put up a transcript at some point, but of course I don’t know when. So if you want verification, either email CNN or wait for their transcript to come out.
But…the point that I want to make, is that there is no formal obligation on internet forums to guarantee for you what you read is absolutely correct. It is only as correct as the interpretation, source, and goodwill of whoever writes here.
As far as I am concerned, I write when I find something that might be useful to others. I also write because I learn a lot from the interaction that I get in return on this forum. I have no axe to grind one way or the other whether Malik Peiris’s viewpoint is believable or not. I only trust that those who read what is written here has the maturity to judge that for themselves.
If you find something that you don;t think is credible, it is natural and perfectly fine to ask again.
But if you are told that it is as accurate as I can represent it since I recorded it and went over it word for word, and you still do not believe me, then it is not productive to keep asking me since I can only repeat what I have said. And I will admit I tend to have a short fuse when time is wasted on unnecessary and unproductive matters.
Also when someone persists in refusing to pick a name. A small curtesy IMO.
I mean, such a remarkable statement should be made on Peiris’ homepage, on some newspaper and magazine-pages and repeated on blogs, forums,other TV-shows, pandemic webpages etc. But I found nothing !
OK, not quite, I found this:
http://glutter.typepad.com/glutter/2005/02/yellow_alert_fo.html
Not to cause panic, but the next pandemic is the Avian flu. Malik Peiris, who pinpointed the coranovirus as the SARS contagion, has said that it is extremely likely that the avian flu bug is mutating the way SARS did in the market stalls of Guangzhou. If that is the case, and the disease becomes human-to-human transmittable, many hundreds of thousands of people are at risk. Perhaps millions.
Posted by: person | Monday, February 21, 2005 at 06:27 PM
“mutating the way SARS did” ?
so, maybe he means something else with “extremely likely”
than I do.
(Giving statements guaranteed some general scrutiny garnering substantial social gravity, sidetracks guidelines shown government sources.)
crfullmoon@ 10:12-- BRAVO!!!
crfullmoon – at 10:12
“(Giving statements guaranteed some general scrutiny garnering substantial social gravity, sidetracks guidelines shown government sources.)”
It could be jetlag. That statement looks interesting but I don’t understand what it means. :-)
anon_22,
It’s a joke. Try abbreviating every word with just the first letter to find out who crfullmoon is alluding to.
LOL
Right. Off to shower and get out of jetlag!
Thanks Monotreme
annon 22. I didn’t get it either…for me it had nothing to do with jet lag.
I am too dumb to get this re:..gs…sg…whom would he/she be referring to?
anonymous-I just googled his comment
“PEIRIS: The important thing to keep in mind is that there have been three pandemics in the last century and we are certainly due for one, and I think if you take the next ten year timeframe, it is extremely likely that the world will have to confront a pandemic, whether it be due to H-5-N-1 or due to another virus.”
Grace,
Interesting. These comments were made in Nov 05.
now he dropped the “other virus” ? anon_22, are you sure ? At least that tells us, that his estimate is probably not based on some new secret data.
annon 22, Grace et al. It would be interesting to get his comments on his level of comfort in Nov 2005 to today…has it gone up or down? are there new concerning developments…or different levels of concern about old things?
I saw an article about a study with ferrets done by the CDC. It was in a local paper. My impression was that they were more dubvious about its transmitability now. I didn’t track it down at the time. (more than a week ago), but it made me a little more comfortable. Have any of you seen it?
Hi Lily. I am not sure I should comment here as ‘…it made me a little more comfortable’.
I think this is the first case in my life-time where I believe information has been deliberately hidden from the general publics and specifically other scientific colleagues view…
…so as Monotreme has put it so eloquently, we do not have the information that others have including the CDC from which to make an educated assessment of the current situation regarding H5N1…
…from the little bit that I have been able to ‘witch’ from the filtered and spun information being released, I am not comfortable at all…in fact every fibre that I have developed over many years of practise is twitching at the same time…and it is getting worse as we go along and I have not bits of information to analyse.
Where it all ends…I hope for the best and hope my intuition is wrong.
Sorry…forgot to add…if the behavior within these agencies continues and information continues to be deliberately hidden from professional colleagues specifically who might be able to assist in the situation…
…then after the fact I believe this qualifies as a ‘crime against humanity’ and I believe those responsible should be publically humiliated at a world court and no consequence would be to good for them.
Lily – at 11:05
“I saw an article about a study with ferrets done by the CDC. It was in a local paper. My impression was that they were more dubvious about its transmitability now. I didn’t track it down at the time. (more than a week ago), but it made me a little more comfortable. Have any of you seen it?”
What? Don’t tell me you missed all the fun! lol
We have had some useful, complicated and highly educational discussion of that study, most of which were recorded on this thread.
Tom DVM – at 11:21
Don’t hold back Tom-tell us what your thinking/felling…
Grace. Thanks.
For better or worse, I still believe honesty is the best policy in life and science…makes it easy or in contrast, you don’t have to remember what you said the last time.
If I believed in ‘hell’…which I don’t…then ‘hell’ would be too good for them……………………………………..in my opinion.
Tom DVM,
Keeping your story straight when the facts are changing all the time is a hobby all by itself.
Melanie. I would have to respectfully disagree with you on this one.
The only time one has problems keeping the story straight is when they are making things up…
…I have been around quite a while and in regulatory medicine I do not think I have seen a case of authorities making stuff up ever like they have been for the last two years concerning H5N1.
Why?..Who knows…we are going to end up in the same place one way or another anyway…they might as well have just told the truth.
My experience is that at all levels (state, county, city, corporate, etc) TPTB honestly believe that the ‘little people’ cannot handle too much truth. TPTB are also scared silly of the p word. P*n*c I’ll sell you an ‘a’ and an ‘i’ ;o)
bump
Closed to maintain Forum speed.