Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2002 17:53:05 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Frederick W. Fallon" Subject: Re: Crows in Rock Creek Park and West Nile Virus MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit David Mozurkewich wrote: > > On Wed, 4 Sep 2002, Zucker, Paul A. wrote: > > > Have others in our area had similar experiences? Has West Nile decimated > > our Crow population? > > No, there are plenty of crows around. And lots of other birds. And west > vile nirus is not a treat to any of them. It is just a lot of media hype; > scare tactics sell papers. > > Think about it. The stories we are hearing about this plague simply don't > add up. That this disease is so devastating to so many species of birds > is simply inconsistent with everything we know about it. > > 1. WNV is rampant in Europe. It has not devastated even one species > there. > > 2. In people, this is a remarkably benign disease. Usually, the victim > suffers and recovers never knowing he was sick. The only people who have > died had "... compromised immune systems". I read that as "... they > probably would have died soon anyway." Most people who die from AIDS > actually die from some opportunistic infection that takes advantage of the > weakened patient. But you shouldn't blame the opportunistic infection for > the death. You should contribute the death to the underlying cause. > > 3. During the early stages of this epidemic, most of the dead birds > turned in had died of pesticide poisoning, not WNV. This means doing > anything besides ignoring the disease will do more harm than good. > > Also remember that two events happening at the same time does not prove > that they are related. That a bird tests positive for WNV and is sick in > no way implicates the virus as making the bird sick. Most viral > infections are confirmed by the detection of antibodies in the blood. > But detecting antibodies does not mean the bird is sick. It only means > that at some time in the past the bird came in contact with the virus. > As the virus spreads, more and more dead birds will test positive. This > is exactly what we are seeing and it tells us nothing about whether the > birds are dying from the virus. > > I would not be surprised if we lack even a single, well-documented case of > an otherwise healthy bird dying from an infection of West Nile Virus. Has > anyone tried infecting healthy birds in a lab environment to see what > happens? > > Dave > David Mozurkewich > Seabrook, PG MD USA > mozurk @ bellAtlantic.net > > ======================================================================= > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= Dave makes some good points. Maybe what we need here is a careful control study to find the extent of WNV in the wild corvid population at large - sampling healthy birds. Along with that would be a test for the virus in any blood samples taken > 1 year ago (for other studies) and preserved, if there are any. Fred Fallon fwfallon@earthlink.net Bowie ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================